L18

[spilz]

hi ive just bought an l18 golden nugget plec, its my first plec, and its amazin, im planning on having another one, but want to choose a perfect one, can anyone recommend a good book with plecs in, thanks

sorry to be a pain, but i wanna get this right, what do i do as a pose to cleaning and mainting the tank for a plec. 20% water changes with safe guard every 2 weeks?

 

[smithrc]

Planetcatfish is a great recource

not being funny but the L18 gets to over a foot (12") in size - 2 of them would require a BIG tank... 1 will need a bigger tank than you have in your signature

 

[spilz]

im not mocking your knowledge, but i was told they grow according to the tank, although im not really gonna be in troulbe for a while as apparently they are slow growers and mine is only 2 inch's

 

[§tudz]

that is a misconception made by nearly everyone who is new to the hobby.

stunting will happen, bu the fish still gorws on the inside. the organs still grow and the fish die a slow and painful death.

U are best to get rid of the fish now, instead of trying to rehome it in like a month or so, as plecs grow very fast, for example, I bought my L001 at about 1.5-2" within 3 months it was 7"

smithRC is a bit of a pro, when it comes to plecs, so take what he says as serious....

as for cleaning water changes and also substrate hoovering

 

[pinkdolphin_113]

im sure everyone thought fish grew to the size of the aquarium at some point. there's no need to be so serious and making the guy feel so small now is there.
this fish is loverly! how much did it cost you? i need a pleco for my tank. im planning on gettin a royal farlowlla which, in my opinion, look great.
you got any pics of your l18?

x

 

[Egmel]

stunting will happen, bu the fish still gorws on the inside. the organs still grow and the fish die a slow and painful death.

As far as I'm aware there's no proof to back up this theory. There has been research done into stunting of fish, it does show premature death, but not necessarily due to the internal organs 'still growing'.

Besides, I think you'll find that fish don't necessarily stop when they reach the maximum size for the tank. They may slow down but I don't think they actually stop.

All in all I agree, 'fish grow to the size of their tank' is a myth, (other than the fact that there would be loads of square 10gallon plecs and bowl shaped goldfish around ), what we do know is that if you keep a fish in conditions that are not spacious enough for it, then it will cause stunting and premature death.

If you are not intimately aware of a fish's life cycle then you will not know at which point it is being stunted which is why most people advise to always buy the fish to suit the tank you currently have. Otherwise you don't know when to move it on and even if you do you may not be in a suitable financial position to do so.

smithRC is a bit of a pro, when it comes to plecs, so take what he says as serious....

Be careful, you don't want to inflate his ego too much

 

[smithrc]

smithRC is a bit of a pro, when it comes to plecs, so take what he says as serious....

Be careful, you don't want to inflate his ego too much

who me

OK its not a Plec but... I re-homed a gold fish that had been terribly 'stunted'.
Its body shape was completely wrong as it didn't have the room to swim and build muscles.
It couldnt swim properly and once it was added to a proper sized tank (a 20gal I had empty in the shed) it couldnt swim about properly. I had to turn the filter down to let it feed off the bottom. Unfortunatly it died within a few months - it looked like a nasty way to die.
It was about 3 years old and had lived with another goldfish in an 12x8x8 tank

Back to the L18. most Baryancistrus are slow growing - but just because it is small now - dosnt mean it dosnt need room to move - they are very active after lights out and will be developing constantly.

 

[spilz]

cost me 20 kwid, will get pics up, spilz