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How long can you leave these in the tank without it messing with the quality of your water? The back of the package say 2 hours but what if they don't eat it by then?
Just curious to see if you all leave them in longer than what the package suggests. I want to be prepared when I add my pleco!

Justin

Colts Fan For Life
30g platy tank: 2 sunburst wag platys, 2 redtailed white calico platys, 2 red wag platys, 1 fry(not sure who it belongs to), 1 Golden CAE.
Bettas:1 VT male

When I add Algea Wafers to my tank, I break them up into little pieces so that several fish can pick at them at once without having to fight over the food. Another advantage is that you can then learn how many pieces will be eaten within a short amount of time and add more later if needed. I haven't had any left over with this technique.

The pottery that growls!

Are you putting it in for the Betta only? In my 5ft tank the life of any sinking tabs would be well under a minute especially with the CLs.

I would think a Betta would be more of a surface eater rather than a bottom feeder.

As to length of time if it had not been eaten within 15 minutes I would remove it. Even for the 5ft tank I break them up.

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Keith

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The algae tablets i have say you should leave them in for at least 2 hours to allow fish to eat them

I haven't put any of them in yet. I don't have a pleco yet but I figured when I got one that it might have to get use to them since they probably don't feed them the tablets at the LFS. So that is why I was wondering if they could be left in longer. My betta is a topwater feeder so I know he won't mess with algae tabs.

Justin

Colts Fan For Life
30g platy tank: 2 sunburst wag platys, 2 redtailed white calico platys, 2 red wag platys, 1 fry(not sure who it belongs to), 1 Golden CAE.
Bettas:1 VT male

I was gonna say, algae wafer lasting more than a few minutes would be a bit of a novelty. Whether or not your tank is large enough to take food in there for more than say 24 hours is the issue, and in that regard its simply an overfeeding issue, and the answer is quite simply not to put too much in, and thats easy enough to solve by breaking wafers into the sizes that your fish actually need and will be eaten fairly quickly.

In terms of removing uneaten foods, should overfeeding occur its usually perfectly fine to remove them the following day rather than worry about a 2 hour period unless the tank is tiny. Most foods take time to decompose before they become a bacterial overload threat, and this usually takes at least a day at average aquarium temperatures. You'd have to be running a tiny tank with the most sensitive fish imaginable to need to be worrying about a 2 hour uneaten food period. I have fish that wont actually touch an algae wafer until its broken down into mush (doradids, banjo's, giraffe cats etc) and their water quality doesnt noticeable suffer.

Basically decomposition time is the factor to worry about, and that doesnt happen to a level to worry about for at least 24 hours , when the wafers do more than just crumble, and start to disseminate protien into the water in a more serious way, even then, sucking up the remaining mush with a small gravel vac is sufficient to remove the problem.

So basically , dont use more than you need in the first place, and no probs!

One complication I would mention with breaking them up is that occassionally other fish will eat them before the plec gets any, so sometimes its better to put in a complete disc, as it will resist attempts by other fish to eat it for longer, thus allowing the plec to get a shot at it. If your feeding situation gets like that, then you just have to remove foods uneaten overnight anyway.

Most plecs though are better given their tablets and wafers after lights out so the other fish dont outcompete them. Then you just spot clean in the morning, or if youre lucky the other fish will tidy up for you. Basically feed the plecs when the other fish arent feeding, and a lot of the problems cease. Other feeding solutions can be weighted pieces of cucumber etc, that are less attractive to non-vegetarian fish, and more instantly attractive to plecs. Again , they eat what they eat overnight, and you remove the excess cuke in the morning.

longhairedgit,
Thanks for the reply that pretty much dotted the i.

Justin

Colts Fan For Life
30g platy tank: 2 sunburst wag platys, 2 redtailed white calico platys, 2 red wag platys, 1 fry(not sure who it belongs to), 1 Golden CAE.
Bettas:1 VT male