Question about plecos?

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If you get wood that was in another tank I would soak it in potassium permanganate to kill algae, snails and bacteria. It is the active ingredient in Jungle's Clear Water. I would soak any plants you buy, too.
Or you could boil the wood. :)
 
A little advice, potassium permanganate is a strong oxidizer and you do not want to soak anything in it that you would put in your fish tank, especially something like driftwood.
 
Petco/Petsmart/Walmart are notorious for selling Common Plecos without telling the buyer that they will become 2' long. Or that putting them in a tank that is to small will cause stunting, which deforms their spine, causes internal damage and drastically shortens their life span.
When it comes to smaller Plecos there are a lot of them, not just the BN.
Although the BN are usually the better priced of the smaller Plecos. You can go to online fish stores to see which ones you like the best before you go to the store to actually buy anything. That way you will know what your buying and won't get conned into buying a Pleco that's wrong for your tank size.There are also several types of BN Plecos you can get, other than the standard brown or Albino.
Here are a couple examples, The Long Fin Albino BN are very Elegant, the Green Dragons are Cool(especially with kids). The Gold Nuggets are really beautiful but cost about $50.00 each. Depending on the size of the other BN when you buy it, they can be as low as $8.99 for an inch and a half, to $15.99 for 2-3".
The last photo is to show you what you can get stuck with if you don't know what you want before you go into the store. With Plecos, it can be a big buyer beware in a lot of stores that don't really know what they are doing.
I presently have 2 Long Fin & 2 Green Dragons. So far they all seem strong and hardy and easy to care for, even when they were very small.
My Grandson likes all of them, but he seems to really like the Dragons. It's probably just the name, but for a 10 year old boy? Having a couple of Dragons is awfully cool.
And all of mine do eat the algae off the decorations and the tank walls. I've never had to clean any algae off my tank walls, and I have 4 tanks.
The only time I've had to clean any algae is when I had a brown algae outbreak from to much sun shinning on one of my tanks. Once I started leaving the tank lights off while the sun was shinning on the tank, the brown went away
 

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Holy cow!! WENDI- is the fish you are holding alive?? They are all gorgeous fish!! How big is the long fin?
 
Holy cow!! WENDI- is the fish you are holding alive?? They are all gorgeous fish!! How big is the long fin?
I should have said that the really big Pleco isn't mine. I don't have a tank anywhere near large enough to grow a beauty like that Pleco.
I do have the Long Fin and the Dragon BN though. And I bought 2 Gold Nuggets online a few years ago, but they both died within 3 days of arrival. So no more pricey fish for me.
The Lon Fin BN, like any other grow to 4-5" long. But if you count their tails they are almost twice that. But for care and feeding, tank size and bio-load they are in the 4-5" range. I got mine on sale for $7.99 ea., which is pretty reasonable.
I also have 1 adult regular BN, named Jed. He's nothing fancy but he gets the job done and he doesn't take any crap from the African Mbunas in the tank with him.
The Mbunas are always stealing his Wafers and then playing tag with it amongst each other. But when they go for the last wafer left, Jed shoves the Mbunas away and won't let them near it. It's pretty comical to watch.
 
I'll have to look into the bristlenose plecos. Thanks for all the replies and help.

What about borneo suckers? I have black skirt tetras and wondering if instead of a pleco a borneo sucker would help with the algae and still get along with my black skirt tetras.
 
Holy cow!! WENDI- is the fish you are holding alive?? They are all gorgeous fish!! How big is the long fin?[/QUOTE

I was looking closer at the picture and I think it is alive. If it were dead it's fins wouldn't be spread out the way they are. I have no way of knowing for sure since it was only an example picture. But IMO it looks alive.
It is a beautiful specimen of a Common Albino Pleco. Which is why I chose it. A lot CP's that we see have been stunted and so they aren't nearly as spectacular as one that was allowed to grow like that one.
 
Before you feed them vegetables, make sure you prepare them (ex. boil and then blanch) beforehand. Most fish don't like raw veggies because they are too tough for them to chew on.

just FYI, blanching involves the brief boil, not just the cold water bath, so saying boil then blanch would mean boiling it twice. you can also blanch in oil. just thought I'd share since I also quite like cooking :p
 
jeffp said:
just FYI, blanching involves the brief boil, not just the cold water bath, so saying boil then blanch would mean boiling it twice. you can also blanch in oil. just thought I'd share since I also quite like cooking :p

Ohhh, I didn't know that! My bad, whenever I watch Ina Garten or Emeril on Food Network they always say "boil then blanch".
 
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