Hundreds of PLECO'S!!!!

[Guest]

My husband and I actually both had a day off today so we decided to go to the springs and the closest one is Rock Springs... now also known as "Kelly Park". Any of yall from the central Florida area probably know what im talking about... its near Apopka.

Anyway we went early in the morning and left around noon. We like to go early becuase you get to see a lot of the wildlife before all the people scare it off. We saw a lot of fish... particularly PLECO'S!!! There were literally hundreds of pleco's in one area grazing on the algae! I couldn't believe it.. .they were HUGE!!! Like 1-2' long.
Now i am guessing that the springs are perfect for them to live in becuase its always 72 degree's year round... even in the winter... but i had never seen pleco's in these springs before... we hadn't been for 2 years but we usually go every year.

Anybody else in Florida ever seen anything like this??? I knew they were being released in the wild a lot but id never seen so many in one place before... it was absolutely amazing!

 

[PsiPro]

Exoctics are very bad for the enviroment.

I have seen plecos in Gennie springs, north of ganisvile. Huge things, I've also seen them in the cannals at home (Ft. Lauderdale), but that is much more rare.

 

[Skyrmir]

I can find foot long+ pleco's around my apartments in Lauderdale pretty much any day of the week. I've also seen a school of some sort of neon and bunches of various cichlids. Pretty much if you release enough of anything that can breed down here...it will, LOTS.

While I personally think a lot of the native freshwater fish are some nasty critters, it's still wrong to see so many invasive species. Worst part is unlike the plants that you can at least find, the fish and wildlife are nearly impossible to track down and remove.

 

[Zagz]

That is so sad. It's too bad that people can't realize how terrible it is to introduce these species to the environment.

 

[PsiPro]

Wanna see how bad exoctics are, take a look at this.

6-ft alagator vs a 13ft python.

Never release anything to the native eco system, every time i throw a plant down the toliet i let it dryout and grind it up a bit, becsaue i couldn't live with myself if I released duckweed or slavina to tallahassee

 

[PsiPro]

Oh here is the full story: http://www.tonyrogers.com/humor/python_alligator_explosion.htm

 

[Guest]

erg... for some reason im not getting any replies, even on my watched posts.

Yeah i know that invasive species can be detrimental to any ecosystem... however as far as the pleco's are concerned one thing they are good for is the algae control that's been getting out of hand in florida. Because of all the fertilizers people use in their lawns there are getting too many phosphates in the water that's causing more algae to grow and choking out the natural habitat. So in a way the pleco's are actually helping the environment. And they can live in these waters year round becuase even in the winter its going to be 72 degrees in the springs.

Another problem we've had here in lake county is the apple snails taht people release is eating ALL of the vegatation..... but thats an entirely different story.

 

[greenmaji]

that was the idea behind the bug contoll program, and that got way out of hand.

Alot of tropical breeding is done down there, I deamed of my outdoor Angelfish breeding facilty when I was a teenager
As you can see.. I never moved down there.

 

[Guest]

two summers ago a alligator was found in a lake! No where NEAR where alligators should live. it was so cute. I got to hold it. Soft little thing too. I guess the owners didn't want it anymore. Thats pretty sad.


When I throw away plants I put it in the disposle

 

[PsiPro]

We had an aligator in our pond in our back yard (pond is entirely in our yard). But thats more expected since the everglades bufferzone is only 5mi away.

 

[greenmaji]

I thought you guys had mostly brackish/salt water crocs down there?

 

[Blazeherd2306]

I don't think we have crocs around here...just gators.

 

[PsiPro]

Nope florida is one of the only places in the world alagators and crocs both live, however crocs are rare. They can be found all over in the estuaries, however I think they are most prevelant in Cape Canavaral (sorry i cant spell, where they shoot rockets off).

greenmaji: Before humans came down, the everglades extended from the south side of Lake Oka.. okach.. okachobee? (The big blue circle) to the south west side of florida ( where the everglads currently are). And gators (freshwater) lived everywhere there, now their habitat has been destroyed so they still lived everywhere. After they were almost hunted to extention they were put on endangered species list, now however they have more then recouped their losses. You cant shake a stick in the glads without hitting one of them. I have been cannoeing and had them swim along side me, thank god they see me as a 16foot gator, not a snack.

Evergaldes is an amazing ecosystem. Florida itself is fairly intrested, but I would love to live there more permenatly if the drivers were better, I spoke spanish better, and it were 10 degrees cooler year round.

 

[Guest]

Gators gators and more gators... lol. "Okeechobee" i used to live down there.

 

[greenmaji]

lol.. I did know quite a bit of that but thanks PsiPro

the US core of CE's are planing on giving a nice chunk of it back.. too bad its probilby going to flood the whole system with agricultural N