New leopard frog pleco colony feeding help

[Stealth Aquatics]

Hello!

I have recently purchased some leopard frogs and I’m having a hard time knowing if they are eating or not, and because of their price tag it’s giving me anxiety. I have fed love bbs, repashy omnivore, a few green beans, and I’m not sure if they are eating because of their nocturnal lifestyles. 
they might have eaten the repashy as I couldn’t find it in the tank this am, but these are fish that I have wanted for several years now. 
do any of you have any tips or ideas to help me monitor them eating or to calm my anxiety haha. Thanks.

[sudofish]

My sister has one of those. She thought it was dead until I found it hiding between the back of the filter and the glass. Anyway it has eaten algae wafers and frozen bloodworms. Turn off the light and drop the food in, hopefully it will be gone by morning. If you know where he's hiding try to get the food to land as close to him as possible. That's what we've been doing. Love those pictures especially that last one. I haven't actually gotten that good of a look at ours lol.

Edited June 6, 2021 by sudofish

[Colu]

As they are Omnivores   I would feed hikari algae wafers bloods worms  brine shrimp repashy bottom scratcher  hikari sinking wafers 

Edited June 6, 2021 by Colu

[k8nabel]

I’m having a similar challenge (can relate to the price tag anxiety, but also have wanted this gosh for years, finally got my hands on one). Mine came in really tiny, like maybe just shy of an inch? I had added some newer pieces of drift wood in anticipation of their arrival to be sure there were ample hiding spots and would already have some biofilm on there for them. I feed baby brine, blood worms, hikari algae wafers. I have also witnessed them on some amazons that had dead algae on them and now that dead algae is gone. I’m assuming because their a baby they are more interested in the algae and biofilm in the tank, but as they grow would I then expect to need to add larger food options like green beans, cucumber? Should I add those things now? Is best practice to feed at night or are they more likely to show themselves if I’m feeding at normal times? 
 

thanks in advance!

[nabokovfan87]

@Odd Duck might have some insight for this!

I would focus on algae+bugs for their diet.  Things like Repashy bottom scratcher is great for this.  NLS has their algaemax wafers which I think are just about the best wafers you can get in terms of having good algae sources.  I haven't used them, they are on the list, but I have used hikari (worked great) and northfin (do not recommend) as well as various other brands of wafer.  Sometimes fish are just picky and other times it could be lighting, vibration, big scary shadows, or just the door that's right next to the tank and spooking them once it opens.

You mentioned nocturnal concerns and not visually seeing them eat.  There's also a term called crepuscular where animals will feed when lighting is dim.  I would recommend always trying to feed these guys during the hours right when the lights start to turn on or as they dim down for the night.  Check back in ~15-30 minutes and see if you then see any of them eating their food.  Using the blue light modes on something like the Fluval 3.0s helps a lot with giving you the ability to have ~30 minutes of feed mode lighting and see the fish doing their thing if they are more of the lowlight preference species.  I had some corydoras I didn't see them eat for near 2 years..... the result of that experience was doing rounds of treatment for internal parasites, getting them healthy, and trying to keep them healthy with good nutrition.

[tike]

PlanetCatfish.com - Peckoltia compta (Loricariidae) Cat-eLog

 

[Odd Duck]

Solid advice here, especially @nabokovfan87.  The only other food I would recommend is the Ebo sponge soft gran.  From what I understand, a lot of the omnivore plecos eat a fair amount of freshwater sponges from the underside of rocks.  The more variety of meaty foods and veggies you can give them the better.  Zucchini (aka courgette) is often a favorite but most like it slightly softened.

I completely agree with feeding right before lights out, then checking with a small flashlight to see if they’re eating.  If you can manage it, somewhat dimming the flashlight will help, you don’t want to startle them off their food if you can avoid it.  Plenty of hiding places are really important for this species and not just any cave.  It needs to be the right size and shape.  Too big isn’t comforting, too narrow is dangerous.

They should have well-aged wood, too, with plenty of biofilm.  The Ebo foods seem to do really well for plecos and they have a nice variety.  Repashy is also excellent and soft foods like this are sometimes taken when algae wafers aren’t.  I’ve seen posts about people moving smooth rocks into a shallow tank or tray of water and deliberately giving it too much light so it grows algae, then moving those into the tank and trading those stones out with others so there’s always a supply of algae.  If my fish were being picky enough, I would try that.  Usually the various Repashy foods or Ebo foods will get them eating sooner or later.  Did you ask what the breeder was feeding?  Maybe try that.

@Guppysnail directly feeds baby brine shrimp to her bristlenoses that will lay on their backs to suck down the BBS as fast as they can.  😆 I’m not sure your Peckoltias will ever do that.  They are considered a more shy species.

[tolstoy21]

I was under impression that these fish preferred a more carnivore forward diet than vegetarian. I have 4 of them in my community setup, but honestly I have no idea what food they prefer out of what I throw into the aquarium.

With fish I never observe eating, I usually monitor their body shape, health and activity over the course of a couple weeks. I will also stop using foods that are obvious they wont eat, but only after introducing that food on multiple occassions.

[gardenman]

My Super Reds used to love salad shrimp made for human consumption. Drop one in and they'd swarm it. I'd buy them pre-cooked and frozen and just pop one or two out and drop it in the tank. They also devoured freeze-dried tubifex worm cubes stuck on the glass. A lot of plecos are more carnivorous than expected.