Pleco collection

[Plecostmus 1234]

Okay thanks

 

[tlindsey]

Okay thanks

Welcome aboard

 

[altums85]

Yeah plecos poop a lot. I have a 150g with a big group of zebras and every morning there's a big pile of poop in the corner

 

[aquaticeye]

I have always liked plecos and wanted to start a bit of a collection but was wondering why plecos require such large tanks when they rarely swim so I was wondering if it would be possible to keep some in individual tanks which they will be able to fully move turn around in so for example a bristlenose pleco get to 8 inches max so I would do a 10x10x10 (the height would be the same on all of the tanks) which would be about 5 gallons when they are ment to have 20 gallons but I was wondering if it was heavily filtered and had no other fish inside would it be alright for a pleco collection

Make that a 10 foot by 10 foot by 10 foot tank and you'll be okay ??

 

[Niki_up]

This, 100% this. Of course, I think you could also work with other fish/organisms that process pleco waste (shrimp come to mind), to help reduce the bioload more, but from what I understand, plecos're gonna create a large amount of waste. You could probably modify it a bit more by making a sump to hold the biological filtration and going barebottom, so the waste either gets washed into something that you can easily replace (like polyfilter/filter floss), or wash (like a filter sock) to help with water quality.

One thing I'd like to add: look into Repashy Morning Wood and Repashy Soilent Green. I haven't used those with plecos, but otos love soilent green.

No animal will help with lowering bio load and in fact any added animals will increase bio load.

Myra shrimp and snails will help breakdown the waste, yes filters and things can catch the waste, but really at the end of the day you have to do water changes to get ride of the built up nitrates.

 

[Niki_up]

If I were to do a big tank with dividers how much space would each pleco need could you give me ideas for a couple of pleco please

It’s probably going to be different for each type of pleco honestly.

the only example I can give is I havetwo bn plecos sectioned off in my 135g tank. They are 5Inches each and they have about 14 inches by 6 or 8 inches sectioned off the tank.

I javelin a group of 5 L333’s King tigers, if I were to section them off I would give them about a foot of the aquarium.