I have a pair of aggressive 2.5in. Convict and their babies, in a dirty tank, and I want to put a pleco in there to clean the tank. Will they beat up that pleco? What size pleco should I put? Would the pleco bother the babies? they are about 4 weeks old.
Aggressive convict needs pleco
- Thread starter vd853
- Start date
short answer - clean your tank yourself.
the pleco will cause undue stress on the parents and will eat the fry when given a chance.
the pleco will cause undue stress on the parents and will eat the fry when given a chance.
if you get a pleco the same size or smaller then they will kill it in a day or two.trust me on this get a large pleco, maybe 5 or 6 inches so they will stay away from it. but i agree if your tank is getting realy dirty clean it yourself.
Wow I can tell you are relatively new to the hobby. First of all things people should know PLECOS DO NOT EAT FISH POO or ALGAE IS NOT THEIR MAIN DIET!! They will eat leftover food BUT you still have to feed them specific food as well. What size tank are we talking here? If it's anything under 29 gallons you shouldn't even have 2 cons in there IMHO. The pleco will eat the fry if the pleco is large enough. Yet on the other hand cons are very aggressive parents and do anything to protect their fry. Ok now you do know you have to do water changes right along with gravel vaccuming? IMO it should be a minimum of 2 - 25% water changes a week to keep the fry and parents healthy. I do 2-50% waterchanges on all 11 of my tanks weekly smallest being 29 gallons largest being 240 gallons. Sometimes even more. Ok next question did you cycle your tank properly and do you do regular testing? I am only asking questions like this is because I feel as though you are new to the hobby and I want you to get off on the right foot. If you have many years 7+ with this hobby you should bascially everything there is to know about fish keeping. I personally have had fish tanks around me when I was born so thats 16 years experience but 10 personal years of experience.
IMO plecos are a double edged sword. Yes, they keep the glass neat (but mag floats do too), and yes, they eat left over food BUT the massive amounts off poo they create mean you either have to want a pleco cause you like them, or you're just doing more w/c because of an increased bio-load because you don't want to clean the glass....
get a scrub brush not a pleco they are a pretty big bio load eat fish eggs and would get picked on buy the parrents plecos really don't work we'll in breeding tanks
i agree with all of the above (as a proud owner of 11 plecos at this moment) - any food or algae a pleco eats gets pooped right back out into the tank where you can see it, and the poop is a lot more ugly and dirty-looking than the leftover food that was in the tank beforehand. a pleco large enough to be safe from the convict's aggression is too big for your tank, and also big enough to sneak over to the nest site at night and eat the eggs or wrigglers. if you can't keep your tank cleaned properly without a pleco, it's going to be 5x harder with a pleco, not only physical waste but added ammonia/nitrite on the biofilter. not to mention the cheap $3-4 common plecs grow anywhere from 12-24", depending upon the exact species.
I agree with the above statements - clean it yourself. You may get bitten, but you'll stand a much better chance than a pleco 
. Even a large pleco is vulnerable at the eyes & can have them ripped out by vicious little cichlids. Happened to me 
in my 55 and mine weren't even defending a brood (P. saulosi). Cons will defend a brood with their very life. Best to let them live in peace.
. Even a large pleco is vulnerable at the eyes & can have them ripped out by vicious little cichlids. Happened to me in my 55 and mine weren't even defending a brood (P. saulosi). Cons will defend a brood with their very life. Best to let them live in peace.