Don't look Captain... you have been warned...

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

You know, I've given Captain Barnacles a hard time for her suckermouth distain, and I adore my two little L181's, Ziggy and Stardust, and I'm delighted whenever I see them. Have been thinking of getting a male and trying to breed them, even.

I scanned down those photos ooohhing and ahhing over the ones I really liked, but gradually started to get an uneasy, slightly creeped out feeling from a few of them. Began thinking that some look somewhat alien. Like if they were elephant sized, they'd be monsters in a movie.
Then I saw one and stopped dead.


It scares me. I don't like that one at all, and now I get it. I get it now, @CaptainBarnicles . Sorry for tormenting you about your pleco hatred, because I truly understand now.

Not that I'll stop teasing you mind, or stop keeping plecs myself.

 

[Seisage]

I scanned down those photos ooohhing and ahhing over the ones I really liked, but gradually started to get an uneasy, slightly creeped out feeling from a few of them. Began thinking that some look somewhat alien. Like if they were elephant sized, they'd be monsters in a movie.
Then I saw one and stopped dead.


It scares me. I don't like that one at all, and now I get it.

To be honest, I'm somewhat of a mild pleco hater too. We can form a club, get t-shirts. Their dorsal sides are usually fine, but ventrally? Their mouths do unsettle me, especially on the large plecos...

Now here's my real confession: some of the larger corys I really don't like the look of (the pygmies are beautiful and perfect though). Their eyes are unnerving, and the more I look at them, the more I get a little creeped out. With their bright eyes and long faces, they look like those horses with the creepy blue eyes.

You can't tell me these aren't the same animal.

 

[Colin_T]

To be honest, I'm somewhat of a mild pleco hater too. We can form a club, get t-shirts. Their dorsal sides are usually fine, but ventrally? Their mouths do unsettle me, especially on the large plecos...

Now here's my real confession: some of the larger corys I really don't like the look of (the pygmies are beautiful and perfect though). Their eyes are unnerving, and the more I look at them, the more I get a little creeped out. With their bright eyes and long faces, they look like those horses with the creepy blue eyes.

You can't tell me these aren't the same animal.
View attachment 337431
View attachment 337432

That horse's eye freaks me out. Same as dogs that have a blue eye, that's not how dogs or horses should be.

 

[Rocky998]

You know, I've given Captain Barnacles a hard time for her suckermouth distain, and I adore my two little L181's, Ziggy and Stardust, and I'm delighted whenever I see them. Have been thinking of getting a male and trying to breed them, even.

I scanned down those photos ooohhing and ahhing over the ones I really liked, but gradually started to get an uneasy, slightly creeped out feeling from a few of them. Began thinking that some look somewhat alien. Like if they were elephant sized, they'd be monsters in a movie.
Then I saw one and stopped dead.


It scares me. I don't like that one at all, and now I get it. I get it now, @CaptainBarnicles . Sorry for tormenting you about your pleco hatred, because I truly understand now.

Not that I'll stop teasing you mind, or stop keeping plecs myself.

 

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

View attachment 337444

 

[CaptainBarnicles]

I think most fish are freaky looking....puffers are freaky, with their teeth and weird chameleon eyes that move independently of each other ....but plecos give me the heeeeeebie jeeeeeeebies! Gross, yuk and ew get it off me!

 

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

To be honest, I'm somewhat of a mild pleco hater too. We can form a club, get t-shirts. Their dorsal sides are usually fine, but ventrally? Their mouths do unsettle me, especially on the large plecos...

Aaaww, I definitely can't hate them! They can be so pretty and adorable!
I just... kinda got the heebie jeebies a bit, seeing so many, plus that pleco invasion in a Florida lake I showed you the other day is still fresh in mind! I just got it, for the first time. But I'm so conflicted!

Now here's my real confession: some of the larger corys I really don't like the look of (the pygmies are beautiful and perfect though). Their eyes are unnerving, and the more I look at them, the more I get a little creeped out. With their bright eyes and long faces, they look like those horses with the creepy blue eyes.

You can't tell me these aren't the same animal.
View attachment 337431

Nnnnnoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo please please don't make me feel creeped out by cories! I love them so much! Except when they're digging up my plants.

But despite having kept cories for a few years now, I only learned yesterday from GaryE that cories clean their eyeballs by rolling them around in the socket! I've never seen that and didn't have a clue! Makes sense, no eyelids, but now I know they're gonna be rolling their eyes at me as they dig up my plants....

@CaptainBarnicles - I blame you for this!

 

[GaryE]

All joking aside.... I dislike the common pleco, and the fact the trade sells fish that will outgrow the average aquarium. They are hobby killers, and they make sincere people sad as they try to cope with the growth of pets they want to do right by. Yes, they should know better, but they don't. The fish suffers, the people suffer, and people leave the hobby because of that. I made the pleco mistake way back when, and it was not fun.

But Loracarids overall? I like them. I don't keep many catfish now, beyond Corys, Sturisoma and Acestridium, but I do get tempted.

I like human-like eyeballs on a fish. No catfish will ever out eye a Satanoperca Cichlid, but I like the give and go of a fish studying me right back. A fish with actual mammalian eyes would be fantastic.

If I had to choose between a horse and a Loracarid, the fish would win. Horses clog your filters.

 

[Magnum Man]

Just as some would say a common pleco clogs your filter…

Really funny the bushy noses didn’t hit the hobby first, as most only grow 1/3 the size of the common ones

 

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

Really funny the bushy noses didn’t hit the hobby first, as most only grow 1/3 the size of the common ones

And strange, given how easy it is to breed bristlenoses and some similar sized species in captivity, while common plecs need huge like, river banks to breed, so not easily mass produced like bristlenose are...

I don't know the trade or industry of the hobby supply and current trade well enough to know for sure, but are most of these tiny common plecos wild caught or mass farmed in Asia then imported so cheaply, that they're still worth fish stores adding them to their order because they're still tiny juveniles and cheaper than paying for the costs associated with buying the much more suitable for the average aquarium sized captive bred bristlenoses? Even though those (the normal colour varieties anyway) are widely available for cheap or for free now?

Wish my folks were still alive and young enough to remember details of the aquatics side of their business and the trade and hobby 40 or 50 years ago. I know more about the aviaries side of it, since my parents business meant trading in species that are now endangered, long before the CITES act and wild species numbers were known, and I know they felt some guilt for that involvement in the trade even though they were a small part of the trade at the passionate keeper and sellers side, and wouldn't have traded in some species like Hyacinth and scarlet-winged macaws, had they known at the time the things we know now, I'm sure.

Fortunately we still have people who remember or were involved in the hobby or have delved into the history with us, and I love hearing from them about it, and about the differences between old school fishkeeping and new school. Plus how things have changed over time.

Or someone who might have any knowledge of why common plecos have been so widely sold even to this day, and stores haven't just stopped stocking them and stuck with smaller plecos species? @TwoTankAmin @Colin_T @GaryE @Back in the fold @Ichthys ? Would love any input from you guys! I'm sure the answers will wind up boiling down to money, costs, big corporations outcompeting small ones by mass producing cheap fish for profit, not passion, exploiting wild ecosystems, and/or poorer countries and their peoples. It usually seems to anyway.

 

[GaryE]

Common plecos came into the hobby early - they are located in one of the early popular sources (Guyana). They appeared in the oldest fish books I've read, as already established. I used to go to US chain stores, and they sold pacus (giant fruit eating fish that are cute when very young) and Jack Dempsies with stickers saying they were good for 10 gallon tanks. They absolutely had to have those, and plecos, because those were popular fish in the 1950s and 60s. Before air shipping, fish had to be tough to make the sea journey, and it was best if the journey was short.
The first importation of neon tetras to Montreal came via sailors, and the fish sold for $5 each, during the Great Depression. I think my grandparents paid a rent of $2 or 3 a month for their flat back then.
The inexpensive common pleco had a serious head start. The American chainstore hobby crippled itself with conservatism for a long time, and the big trade in cheap common plecos is a relic of that period.
It seemed like nothing new could break into the mainstream.
I haven't seen too many of the big nasties in US stores over the past few years, but while some of the worst choices have faded commercially, bristlenoses have never taken over for potential two foot plecos.
I talked about this with a fish store heavy, and he said common plecos are almost free on wholesale lists, while Ancistrus with their small broods cost a lot more. When I mentioned the size problem, he said most plecos died before they made it to 5 inches, and if customers brought them in for rehoming, they could throw them in the dumpster while saying they had sold.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

Here is what I know about plecos of which I have kept and breed many 100s. I have a weakness for the B&W Hypans. Most of them are pretty pricey.

Over the years I have spent at least $50,000 on this hobby. A lot of that was in the last 17 years. I have paid as much as $1,000/fish for some of the really hard to find plecos. And I have been very lucky in all of this. My first serious group was a proven breeder colony of 13 zebra plecos and 5 of their offspring. I have to got into my IRA to pay for them. 2 week after they came home with me the alpha make spawned, two weeks later #2 spawned and in another 2 weeks the alpha went again.

I ended up with a waiting list of folks wanting to buy the fish. First, they paid me back for what I paid for them. Then they reimbursed me for all of the money i spent on the hobby prior to getting them. Then they allowed me to start supporting fish organizations/events that do good things for the hobby.

I have been able to be a sponsor at events and of speakers at them, I have donated to research projects in Brazil, to C.A.R.E.S. I have become the second biggest donor to Planetcatfish. And those zebras enabled me to get my next groups- L173b, L450 and a side trip into Pekoltia compta (leopard frog). Then came RB line 236, a WC and a domestic group of 173 (very rare plecos). Basically, every penny I have spent in this hobby has been ultimately been financed by the plecos I have had spawn in my tanks. And they have also led me to events where I was able to meet and talk with some of the worlds greatest experts on them.

And then there is the fact that most of the B&W plecos with which I worked/work are considered endangered. So there was another benefit to it all.

Now here is the really "interesting" part of all of this. When I was setting up my first tank I had made a list of rules. One was no ugly canisters under tanks (I now have 3 running), all plastic plants (I now have many jungle tanks) and there was no way I wanted any of those ugly sucker mouthed fish that clung to the glass.

"The best laid schemes o' Mice an' Men, / Gang aft agley,” And mine sure did. How can anyone love fish like these?

And these guys sure look gross, right?

And this is really nasty looking....

Sorry for the poor pics. I raise pretty fish but take lousy pics.

 

[Rocky998]

 

[Colin_T]

Just as some would say a common pleco clogs your filter…

Really funny the bushy noses didn’t hit the hobby first, as most only grow 1/3 the size of the common ones

In Australia bristlenose catfish (common Ancistrus species) were available well before plecos (Hypostomus plecostomus or Pterygoplichthys gibbiceps). Locally bred bristlenose were found in shops in the early 80s and probably before that, while the bigger plecos didn't turn up until the late 1980s early 90s.

Australia has pretty tight restrictions on bringing fish into the country and if it isn't on the allowed list, it probably won't be here, certainly not in any numbers. Somehow the bigger plecos did get onto the allowed list but the smaller species (Peckoltias, Ancistrus and other small species of suckermouth catfish) weren't allowed in. A couple of species are now allowed in but for the most part the majority of small suckermouth catfishes are not allowed into Australia.