Pitbull Plecs

[IzzysGuppies]

Hi all,
I was just after a bit of advice....
Currently we have 2 Guppies and 2 Panda Cories, we are aiming for 5/6 of each of these in a 60 litre tank.

After seeing Hill Stream Loaches, and reading about them we decided that they were not suitable for us so started looking around at some of the alternatives.
We are now considering a Pitbull Plec. I have been trying to read up on these and many people suggest keeping three to be best, but I am concerned that my tank won't be big enough for both 5/6 cories and 3 pitbull plecs - a few too many on the bottom.
I have also been told that a single one would be quite happy living with the cories, so I thought I would run both chains of thought past you on this forum and see what people think.

Many thanks,
Lisa and Izzy

 

[Jonathangerous]

that's fine...to be fair, though, most tropical tanks are suitable for hillstream loaches, so long as there is decent aeration.

 

[pippoodle]

That should be fine in 60 litre as long as the tank is long instead of high so it has a 2ft x 1ft foot print minimum - then you have enough flloor arear for the fish

I would go for 5 corys and 3 pitbulls

The pitbulls are a lot happier when there is more than 1 so if you are worried you could cut down to 2

 

[IzzysGuppies]

Thanks for that.
The Hillstream loaches are now a no no. I was originally drawn to them in fascination with seeing their bodies on the glass, and when I first showed Izzy she liked them too, then I read up a bit about them and thought they sounded that they would need more care than we could really give to keep them happy and healthy on the long term, although I did wonder about the extra aeration route, especially as we do have a couple of bubble stones in there, but after seeing the Pitbul Plecs Izzy prefered them as you couldn't see all their insides working!!! (Its Izzys tank - It was her 9th Birthday Pressie after getting hooked whilst looking after fish in her classroom!)

Pippoodle, the tank is 2' x 1' footprint. Now the other thing I heard in respect to only having one rather than more is that they are messy fish in comparison to the others in the tank. In many respects I would prefer to have 3 if that is the magic number as I want any fish we have to be the happiest they can be in just 60l of water, but I do want to make sure that I'm not over doing it.

We have a fair amount of plants in there, and 2 large pieces of Morpani?? Wood (like bog wood)

Also............ I presume that if we end up with 5 panda cories, 5/6 guppies and 3 Pitbull Plecs, that would be it for stocking levels, so I need to make sure that Izzy understands that once any Pitbulls go in, there will be no more room. not that we've seen anything else that takes our fancy that would fit in well with the tank and our newness to this.

Once again, many thanks
Lisa.

 

[Jonathangerous]

sounds like a good community, although not to be contentious or anything, but in my experience with many balitorid loaches, they really don't need any specialized care. Most information about how they are poor competitors and their purported requirement for cold waters is false.

 

[pippoodle]

Hi Lisa

I havent had any problems with the pitbulls being messy - they are only tiny plecs but do an excellent job with the algae on glass etc , you shouldn't have problems with poop with having the corys as they constantly stir up the substrate
matbe add a couple of trumpet snails to keep it stirred to and then poop just floats into the filters

If you want i got lots and lots of trumpet snails - been breeding them for mum in laws pond - i can send you some just pm me your address

If Izzy is interested in adding anything else in the future she could add some shrimp - cherrys and amanos being the easiest to care for

Take care

Sarah x ps got 2 little monkeys who adore their tank so i know what its like with kids and thier tanks

 

[IzzysGuppies]

Thanks again,
Jonathangerous, the loaches thing was more a percieved requirement for flowing water, and from what I read, extra aeration certainly helps, but many people seem to say a larger, longer tank than mine and a flow from one end to the other to keep them completely happy, but of course I stopped looking into them when Izzy turned more to pitbull plecs. I won't discount them completely for the future as i was fascinated - though I spend far too much time as it is watching the 4 tiddlers we have at the moment! (how long would hillstream loaches live for?)

Pipoodle, we have medium rounded dorset gravel, does that make any difference to the pitbulls? The cories seem ok with it and I've seen a fair number of people move from sand to gravel even with cories. so I'm not too worried about them.
As for Trumpet snails, Izzy has a 'thing' about snails at the moment, though I'll show her a pic and see what she says (also if they are ok with gravel). My main question about them, would be how to keep the numbers down? At the moment she has a little fit if she spots any snails that hitched a ride on the plants, so I'm afraid that these get squashed against the glass and turned into guppie treats - sorry about that, and obviously I wouldn't want to be doing anything like that to some that were introduced on purpose! These ones seem to still be tiny when they manage to lay loads of eggs. I'm hoping we've broken the cycle now, it was a daft mum that suggested that we keep the couple that we first saw to see what happened with them - loads of eggs, thats what happened!

Thanks,

Lisa.