Pleco's in planted tanks?

[Mysphit]

What is the general rule of having pleco's with plants? Is it a no no or depending on the species can they cohabitate? I really do love the more rare pleco's and would love to have them in the tank I plan on creating.

If only certain types of Pleco's are suitable, any suggestions? The tank is a 55 gal that I'm looking to populate. With luck I will be moving up to a 125 soon.

 

[WyldFya]

Many factors here. 1) specific species o pleco, as some eat vegetation, many eat meat, and some eat everything. 2) types of plants being kept. 3) setup of the planted tank. Let me know what these stats are, and then I can let you know more in depth as to whether or not it will work.

 

[pophead]

plecos normally don't do very well in planted tanks. I had some in my 55 gallon(moved them to my 90) and they uprooted the plants daily. also some of them damaged the plant leaves as they were grazing on them.
sometimes it does work very well, just in my experience it hasn't.

 

[WyldFya]

If the plants are kept in the proper environment you should not have that problem.

 

[Mysphit]

I will get more info posted as I progress. I can tell you that I would be interested in the smaller species right off the bat. I've had some pleco's reach 15" on me before and ended up selling / trading them to my LFS (which now sucks).

My current 2 pleco's which I think are the coolest ever need to get identified but havent been able to get a good picture of them lately. They stopped growing at about 4" and are a yellow gold color and are a bristle nose variety. Great description I know... I've never seen them before so I had to scoop them up. They are completely solid in color and do not have red eyes. I have been trolling the catelog lately and havent been able to identify them.

Anyway, I appreciate the help and will definitely pick your brain once I know what I have.

 

[WyldFya]

Once you get a picture of them, post it here, or in the pleco forum and one of the guys or I will ID it. From there I need to know what your planted tanks setup is, and then what species of plants you intend to keep in the tank.