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Zebra pleco advise and tips please

1192 Views 5 Replies 4 Participants Last post by  AquaAurora
Hello everyone in 4 days I will be meeting with a local zebra pleco breeder and will be picking up three 5 month old zebra pleco. Im hoping that I will at least have one of each sex but at that age the breeder cant know for sure. I'm currently preparing my 17 gallon ADA tank with about 70 shrimps mostly fire red and a few blue and a few chocolate shrimps and plan to move as much shrimps as I can to another tank. I also have a 7 strawberry rasbora and 4 otos. Do I need to move them? I will be upping the tank temperature tomorrow to 81 degree currently at 74. Anything else I need to prepare?

thank you
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Perhaps the breeder can give you some guidance.

Other than that, water quality is super important for these fish. I'd be concerned that your 17 gallon, while may have enough room for them, especially with plenty of structure, won't have the water volume to provide stable conditions without frequent and relatively large water changes.

Meaty foods. Live foods, blood, black, white worms. maybe your culls from the shrimp tank would make a tasty treat.

Current, they like a good flow.

Caves, make sure there are multiple for each fish, so they can each find one they like.

You're good with the heat.

The rasboras and ottos should be ok, they may even be good dither fish.
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Hey thank you very much for the information. Yea I'll be asking many questions regarding care with the breeder. I'm also concern about my plants and if I should start clearing out a section since it seems some plants I have won't survive the high temps
Oh, now that you mention the plants, subdued lighting is best, so let that guide your plant selection. You may want to do a search for discus compatible plants, as it will give you some heat tolerant and likely lower light plants.
saw a pretty neat way to move shrimps, cut the top funnel portion of a 2 liter off, flip it upside down and put it in the bottom section of the 2 liter (you cann make it shorter if you need to) then put some seaweed strips or other things in the bottom of the 2 liter and fill with tank water and maybe some rocks to hold it down. then put it in the tank, works like a fish trap, shrimp get in but struggle to get out. then you can move a whole bunch of them at once and net any stragglers
Considering how much zebra pleco cost I'd get a tank upgrade-more volume=more diluted waste and more stable params. Not sure if you're in the US but petco usually ahs a $ per a gallon sale each season so maybe bump up to a 40g breeder when they have their winter sale. May not be as sleek looking as ada tank but the increase water volume will be appreciated. I'd also be bombarding the seller with questions already to make sure I got everything right before the fish came home.
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