Help IDing pleco

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Llamalord said:
Hey guys, thanks for the replies and help, I'm fairly certain he's a gibby. I've been doing some reading and noticed some reports of them not working well with discus, can anyone confirm this? I've been planning a 75g discus tank and was planning on putting him there until I can get around to a 150g pleco tank.

As for price, he was $3 from a friend who didn't want him anymore :( he didn't have any info other than the name he bought it under.
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Yep, difinitely a gibby. As for the discus issue, I don't know of any reason why they wouldn't work together... I have heard of some cases where plecos suck the slime coat off of other fish, but this seems to be relatively uncommon, and usually when it does happen, it's a result of malnutrition. I guess the amount of waste production could be an issue, since they are sensitive to water quality, but from what I've read on them, discus need frequent water changes anyway.
 
Thanks jclyde, as you mentioned some plecos will feed on slime coats, I already have this little guy with my p. senegalus and have only seen him try to eat the slime coat momentarily when he was first introduced to the tank, since then I haven't seen him try. I have his tank on my desk (college student) so I'm looking into the tank very frequently. I think the incident was caused by hunger, because I have him on a pretty good diet, so he shouldn't be very hungry. because his isn't picking on my p. senegalus I'm fairly confident that he wouldn't bother with a discus.

Anyway, thanks for all the help, it's much appreciated.
 
ElectricBlueSeanBurch said:
What are you feeding him so far?
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Was planning to putting that in my last post, but I had class ;)

I'm feeding him algae wafers (actually about to head out to pick up some more I'm running low), he'll occasionally eat cichlid pellets that I use to supplement my senegalus' diet, and I give him a thin slice of cucumber every couple days. Otherwise he has driftwood in the tank for nibble on and a reasonable amount of algae that's growing naturally in my tank.

EDIT: As you can see in the pics he also sometimes latches onto the feeder I put in for my tetras (I'd just been away for the week).
 
Llamalord said:
Thanks jclyde, as you mentioned some plecos will feed on slime coats, I already have this little guy with my p. senegalus and have only seen him try to eat the slime coat momentarily when he was first introduced to the tank, since then I haven't seen him try. I have his tank on my desk (college student) so I'm looking into the tank very frequently. I think the incident was caused by hunger, because I have him on a pretty good diet, so he shouldn't be very hungry. because his isn't picking on my p. senegalus I'm fairly confident that he wouldn't bother with a discus.

Anyway, thanks for all the help, it's much appreciated.
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Oh, I forgot to mention: plecos do tend to go after bichirs and other ganoid-scaled fish. I'm not sure exactly why that is, but I've seen many threads over the years about people's bichirs getting infections after being rasped on by plecos. In my experience, senegals are fast enough to escape them, though, so I never had any issues when I kept mine with a senegal for about a year and a half.
 
Yeah, I've only ever seen him suck on my senegal once and it was as soon as I'd got him, after he'd been fed he hasn't done it since. So I'm not to concerned, but I know to watch out for it, if I suspect even a minor infection or notice anything that looks like it I'll plan on taking him to a friend and putting some salt in the water to help with infections until his slime coat gets better.
 
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