pleco noob! help me

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surfpalmsncycads

Fire Eel
MFK Member
Feb 13, 2010
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whittier ca
so ive never had anything but common plecos in my cichlid tanks.
id like to start collecting rare plecos and would like some tips. ive heard plecos will fight eachother even though they seem so mellow when i see them. so is there nonos to whom i cant house together? whats kind of water quality do i need? temps, ph... im thinking of using a 100 gal acrylic to start. i have a window i can put the tank near. would that be good for algae? i plan to put different kinds of wood, caves, rocks. not sure if i should have gravel or go bare glass. any help would be great and i mean any. plecos are pricey so i dont want to lose any to simple mistakes. thanks in advance!
 
That's a huge question. Most plecos can either get along or find a small territory and defend it. Avoid acanthicus adonis, they are very aggressive and huge. Royals need to eat wood and you'll have sawdust in your filters every few days to rinse off. Substrate will need constant poo removal, barebottom makes it easy. What sort of species are you interested in?
 
Do not put plecos in acrylic. Even the ones without teeth will scratch the acrylic away and leave little craters all over the inside. Who knows, one might eventually eat through the whole acrylic sheet.

The loricariids are a very diverse family, with very diverse needs. There are the Panaque genus, which eat wood, and a some of the Pseudacanthicas genus are carnivorous. Some get huge, some stay tiny. Some like current, some don't.

Planetcatfish.com has a good database on them. Just go to the e-log, and look up the family Loricariidae, which would be "plecos."

Now, after your decide what you like, then you can come and ask species-specific questions, and we'll help you out as best we can.
 
Royals are one of my favorite, but they're the ones I mentioned in genus Panaque, meaning they require wood in their diet. They leave sawdust all over your tank. And it might keep you up at night (if you're a light sleeper) if you hear the scraping sound of them chewing on driftwood.

The vampire pleco is an omnivore, although its diet should about 80% meat, 20% plant. This is one of the ones that likes a current.

The avocado pleco is also an omnivore, but the opposite: 80% plant, 20% meat. I'd even say to feed it 90:10. Or to try to mainly feed it plant matter, but if it manages to snag something meaty, so be it. This loricariid also likes currents.
 
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