common pleco and african dwarf frogs

Question
QUESTION: I have a 10 gallon tank that I bought for my 3" pleco.  I bought him a new piece of driftwood.  I boiled it and it completely dicolored the tank.  The wood also gets little sections of white that look like mold in the ridges. Is this all ok?  Also, we feed him a pinky tip size wafer every three days.  Is this enough?  Can we add tetras to the tank and live plants?  What will get the water looking ok?

Separately we have a 3 gal tank with 2 african dwarf frogs.  Can we add anything to this tank?  We are considering plants & maybe small fish.  Do we need a small algae eater for the plants? They were separated from the pleco because he was sucking on their backs.  Thank you!

ANSWER: Hi Tiffany,
 Boiling the wood will kill any parasites, etc.  The discoloration comes from the wood releasing tanins. Boiling won't do anything about that, in fact, it might even increase it.  With driftwood, you need to soak it for a long time.  I generally soak driftwood for about a month in a bucket, changing the water every few days.  That gets most of the tanins out.

 By the way, the tanins are not bad for the fish, they just make the water brown.  

 As for food, the pleco needs more than that.  He needs a wafer a day at least.  That's why he was attacking the fish -- he was hungry.

 I would not put in anything with the frogs.  If you put in fish, the frogs will likely eat them.   

-- Ron
  rcoleman@cichlidresearch.com
  Cichlid Research Home Page <http://cichlidresearch.com>


---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: We have one other question... How often should we change filters and how do we do it without disturbing the beneficial bacteria?

In the 3 gal we have an eclipse system 3 with a biowheel and silent 3 stage filtration for the 2 frogs.

In the 10 gal we have a whisper 10 biofilter.

Thank you again for your terrific guidance!
Tiffany

Answer
Hi Tiffany,
  How often to change/clean a filter depends on the kind of filter that you have.  I use mostly sponge filters, and ideally you should rinse them out (squish them under warm running tap water) about every 3 weeks.  I basically never actually replace them -- I've had some of them for a decade or longer. If you do this under warm tap water, you will clean the filter but not kill all the beneficial bacteria.  Similar rinsing works for most foam based filters.  

  For a biowheel, you never actually clean the biowheel.  

  If your filter has "floss" in it, which very few do, I would change that about every 3 weeks.

-- Ron
  rcoleman@cichlidresearch.com
  Cichlid Research Home Page <http://cichlidresearch.com>