you go LisaLQ support those plecs Lol Yes there are many many types of Plec's and a few that get to max size 6" or under.
I agree, If anything the Plec is perfect for the novice. They are pretty hardy fish, and as long as you get a smaller variety are excellent for smaller tanks, considering the amount of times a noobie is advised to get ottos which are extremely sensitive and not really a novice fish, I would say a plec is much better.
Size wise Plecs are generalised as big fish, but apart from the Gibbi and Common plecs which are the main sellers in the LFS, the rest are normally like King Tigers or Queen Aboresque which are considerably smaller.
The novice will never research if they have the opinion fish are easy, and its not their fault. What matters is how they respond to the problems when they occur. If they say F*** it (which I doubt are the exact words older generations would ever say) and just let the problems happen, then they shouldn't be into the fish. If like I did when I started they try and find out about the problem (much easier for us these days with the internet) then a big thumbs up.
I discovered forums on the internet, when I bought a 29USG tank with 2 commons in it. They were about 7-8 inches each and I came on here to find out why they were so inactive. I was told that they needed to be rehomed, which I did and I now have 4 beautiful pitbull plecs.
Plecs are ace, Novices are naive not evil, shopowners are knowledgable but have to make money, and staff are paid by the hour. If you want an accountant you can trust he has the knowledge and thats why he is paid £30k plus a year. If you want a fish or advice you can't trust that the staff are knowledgable because they get paid minimum wage or close to it, and also probably have to work some weekends too, so a lot of the people who would love to work with the fish they love, can't afford to and therefore get other jobs.
Forgive all the good LFS workers out there that read this because it is a sweeping generalisation and not meant to offend:
In General (hope this saves me from a battering) If you pay peanuts, you get Monkeys (although not always true it seems to be in the main)
By the way I have heard a few of my local P@H staff (where I spend my lunch hour) actually advising people about cycling, compatibility and sizes, also foods, habitat and they also restrict you to 6 fish a day, so maybe some of the scorn they receive on every forum on the web is filtering through and they are doing something about it.
Would be good to hear from people who work at P@H or indeed any other chain pet store,, what they think about their own training, if staff turnover is still bad, if the training has got better over recent years and any other information on how they think there shop has improved or not.
Another Rant Over - Plecs are great for novices as long as the unresearched novice is GIVEN the right info.
/www.planetcatfish.com/catelog/speci...?species_id=177
) I've been keeping an eye out for a small pleco for at least 10 years and was even sold a sailfin as a "dwarf species" a while back when I didn't have many references to compare to. Had the sailfin (grew really fast in our 45 gallon!) and a common that we got from a friend in an 80 gallon tank for a while, they both got well over a foot and now live in a big pond that stays warm year round, but most novices won't be so lucky to have a big tank handy. I know that I can order a small plec through a LFS if I really want to, but a novice isn't likely to know about the different species and can be easily sent off with a monster.
