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Petguy
Lv 4
Petguy asked in PetsFish · 8 years ago

Which of my fish is eating my plants?

I have a fully planted tank and I'm noticing that my plants' new leaves are being eaten, specifically my Italian val and Anubias nana. Also, the middle of my amazon sword plants are being eaten out as well. So there are large holes in the leaves.

I removed my pleco assuming he's the culprit, at least the main one.

However I just removed him, so it's not to say I got the problem out. Here's the rest of my fish species:

Clown loach

Tiger barb

Clown barb

Elephant nose

Tiger loach

Hatchetfish

Marble headstander

Columbian tetra

Kuhli loach

I assume the elephant nose, kuhli loach, and tiger loach are not the plant eaters.

I expect that the main plant eaters would be the pleco or the headstander. However I have heard that clown loaches and barbs as well as certain tetras certainly will eat plants.

Let me know what you think! Thanks

2 Answers

Relevance
  • 8 years ago
    Favorite Answer

    My Clown Loaches nibble and eat my amazon swords and vals. They love eating vals. Your Clown Loach probably is eating your plants. Feed your Clown Loach and other loaches Ramshorn snails. Ramshorn snails are tasty and will prevent your loaches from eating your plants a lot.

  • Anonymous
    5 years ago

    What Ive found works with my Mollies and gouramis, who all love to devour plants is to have a mix of cheap, easy to eat ones, and nice not so easy to eat ones. I keep hornwort, java moss, frill plants and cambomba in a separate tank that doesnt have many plant devourers and kind of "breed" it there (give it all a chance to grow). I keep some of each in my molly tank all the time. The LOVE to eat them, especially the cambomba and java moss. Then, along with those, I put in water wisteria, anacharis, moneywort and swordplants. The cambomba and such is easy to eat. It practically falls apart when they pick at it. With such an easy meal around, they leave the others alone (for the most part) It also helps me to have some of the hornwort or java moss floating. They seem to like it better that way. If you dont have an extra tank to keep the others in, then I would go with mostly java moss and hornwort. They are both cheap and grow quickly. With hornwort, you can put it in a fish bowl with some tank water and just set it next to the tank and it will grow. If it doesnt, put it in front of a window. I hate plastic plants. I would rather buy 2 or 3 new plants every 2 weeks than have fake ones. Good luck!:)

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