Eating Plants.

[NewGuy]

Hello all.

I have a reasonably small tank which is home to three sunset wagtails, a VT angelfish, and two guppies(I'de have more, but I lost a few when I started the hobby. These ones are hardy.)

Anywho, recently I got plants! They're pretty common- (the clossest thing two I could find in my fish book was the Egeria densa) and my Angel seems to bite them occasionally.

He doesn't do it much- I only see him do it once or twice a day- but he probably does it more when I'm away.

My catfish also sucks on them- he eats algae, so I dunno if this is good or bad.

Are they hungry, or is this normal? Should I feed them extra? How much extra?

[Damon]

Its normal. The cat isn't eating the plants but can destroy leaves accidentally. As for feeding your fish, only you know their habits and feeding.

[Zoe]

Yep, angels will chew on your plants sometimes. All my plants have little holes in them from my angelfish
You can offer your angels some small pieces of algae wafer (not very much or they'll bloat), or some brine shrimp with spirulina (frozen) to satisfy their craving for veggies; it may help a bit.

As for overfeeding; it's pretty much impossible to underfeed, if you're feeding your fish a little bit every day or almost every. They aren't eating the plants because they're starving or anything; he just likes plants.

FYI, how small is small? One adult angelfish should be in a 25-30 gallon tall to be healthy.

[mousey]

Also swords, platys,guppies will eat the plants and make them all ragged.

[NewGuy]

He's about 6cm in height at the moment, and, according to my magic ruler his tank is 20cm high by 34cm wide by 20cm thick.

[mousey]

tank is way too small for an angel fish!

[emc7]

Someone check my math, but I get 13.6 Liters or only 3.6 gallons! I hope you mistyped or I miscalculated, because if thats true your tank is way too small.

[NewGuy]

I mismeasured. Its a 20Litre.

Its this model:
http://cgi.ebay.com.au/JEBO-20L-Curv...QQcmdZViewItem
(Sorry for been an EBay link- I couldn't find any others)

Also, the Aquarium was selling them as 'VT' Angels. Does this refer to age?

I hope this is alright....

[emc7]

Originally Posted by NewGuy

... 'VT' Angels. Does this refer to age?...

I'm guessing VT means veil-tail. Same species but extra long trailing fins.

20 liters is 5 gallons, not a long term home for a growing angel. You can cope in the short term with lots of water changes, but even with clean water those fish will start chasing and nipping in that size tank. You can keep a trio of guppies in a 5, but for all those fish a 29 gallon tank (100 liter) would give them room to grow up.

[emc7]

Ths is off topic, but I just went to the all-glass site and there main page has 1.5, 2.5 and 5 gallon kits. Ebay is full of tiny tank. I feel bad for people who got "an aquarium" , put ten fish in it, lose most of them and then come here and get told that thing is only big enough for 1 betta. Dose anyone else think the big companies are deceptively marketing this hobby?

[NewGuy]

When Emc7 say this is a short-term fix, how long is short term?

[Kyoberr]

This isn't unusual at all. The reason why I haven't had much success with live plants is because they are nipped at too much.

[MyraVan]

Originally Posted by emc7

Dose anyone else think the big companies are deceptively marketing this hobby?

Yes, absolutely. They market these tiny "for kids" tanks (less than 10 lieters) as things that are appropriate to put goldfish in, never mentioning that no way will this provide a long-term home for the fish.

Like in this link:
http://www.hagen.com/usa/aquatic/pro...01133800020101

I would be hard pressed to find anything other than shrimps and small snails (or maybe a betta) that could live its whole life in there, and be healthy.

How much better it would be if they sold 10 gallon (35 liter) tanks, and promoted them as appropriate homes for white cloud mountain minnows!

[swordtailbreedr]

Yeah. that angel will die in a few months

[emc7]

If you keep the water clean (by frequent water changes), the fish can survive and even grow. Fish keepers in asia use rivers to change all the water twice a day and have incredible fish densities. But you are running a huge risk every day. The fish will get more aggressive and jumpy and they grow bigger. Sooner or later a fish will die (bump its head on the lid or whatever) or a guest will overfeed the tank and the little filter will not be able to handle to load and all your fish will suddenly suffer from ammonia poisoning. Start saving for a twenty high for the angels and platys and keep the five for the guppies.