Plants And A Large Common Pleco...

[mikev]

Hi,

I'm soon to set up a new 125g...the tank is already here, in fact, but I'm still trying to figure out the details. The fish will include loaches (clowns, yoyos) and a 10" common pleco (who is the main cause for the upgrade); all to be moved from the smaller tanks. The question is if any plants are possible with them, and, if yes, which?
(If possible, I'd prefer to have a very lightly planted tank rather than totally unplanted.)
At this time the loaches do not represent an obvious danger to the plants, but the pleco spends all his time unrooting the artificial plants in his tank. Is there anything he'd leave alone?

 

[daspricey]

get aloot of bogwood and grow java fern and moss on. he can't uproot them.

but might try though trying to eat some wood.


david

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Most plants will be fine with common plecs as long as they are densely planted and don't take up space at the sides of the tank, near any cave entrances or in big open expanses where the plec is likely to accidentally uproot them- they mostly uproot plants with their fins when swimming along the tank at fast speeds and bump into them as they are kinda clumsy fish at times .

 

[mikev]

Thanks a lot, I think I got the idea, will give it a shot.

I don't think he is into eating wood....hopefully, he is not into eating plants either (my BN's in another tank eat swords and jave fern)... and he is not clumsy, he merely believes that he is a tank and makes his own roads....

Any particular plant recommendations besides java fern/moss? (to withstand both him and the loaches)

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

I'm really bad on plant names so i can't help you much there, but in my experience as long as the plant is firmly rooted and has dense folliage/leaves and doesn't require any special attention in getting it to grow, it'll be fine .

 

[PaulEbs]

hey there,

I have just had to get rid of our common sailfin gibby pleco, who, like our last one grew immensly in a year, eating everything including the flakes from the surface, chichlid pellets, frozen cubes and my anubias plant.

But back to your question, in my experience, commons are not the fish of choice for a planted aquarium. You could probably get away with vallis and elodea, any long single stemmed plants should be alright.

Floating plant thickets, or java moss rooted on to cork would do the trick, depends whether you like floating greenery or not.

regards,

paul.

 

[mikev]

Thanks all,

hey there,

I have just had to get rid of our common sailfin gibby pleco, who, like our last one grew immensly in a year, eating everything including the flakes from the surface, chichlid pellets, frozen cubes and my anubias plant.

Yeah, mine is showing similar inclinations now. Used to be algae-only. He is learning how to eat flakes (getting better), discovered Carnivoir pellets, and I saw him eating a bloodworm last week. He also crashed the Ph in the current tank by the amount of food he processes...I can barely maintain 6.2 now. If I see him trying to eat another fish, he is gone, but until this happens, I owe him...got to pay for my mistake.

The hope is that he is 2 year old now...he ought to stop growing finally, right?

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Thanks all,

hey there,

I have just had to get rid of our common sailfin gibby pleco, who, like our last one grew immensly in a year, eating everything including the flakes from the surface, chichlid pellets, frozen cubes and my anubias plant.

Yeah, mine is showing similar inclinations now. Used to be algae-only. He is learning how to eat flakes (getting better), discovered Carnivoir pellets, and I saw him eating a bloodworm last week. He also crashed the Ph in the current tank by the amount of food he processes...I can barely maintain 6.2 now. If I see him trying to eat another fish, he is gone, but until this happens, I owe him...got to pay for my mistake.

The hope is that he is 2 year old now...he ought to stop growing finally, right?

Gibbys/sailfins and commons pleco's are two different fish. They will only "eat" plants if the plants are not healthy or there is algae growing on them.
What are your ammonia, nitrite and nitrates levels in the tank? The plecos poop will not cause the ph to crash as long as it is not causing ammonia problems in the tank and you are cleaning the majority of it up and not letting it to rot in the tank.
If yours is a common plec, depending on what type of common plec it is (as there are two different types), it will probably grow to 12-13inches max, how many inches has it been growing a month?

 

[mikev]

The chemistry of the tank are puzzling to me. It is a 65g, the params are around 0/0/40, no live plants, very little algae, poop is mostly cleaned out. The tank is less than a year old. I maintained it at 6.8 until late spring, when the pH started to collapse (no buffering). What is happening apparently that food processing drives the cycle too intensely. Adding crashed corals (a lot) did not help much, so I'm maintaining the pH with alcaline buffering and hoping to move the larger fish to 125g soon enough....and hoping that the same thing would not happen there. The current situation is actually dangerous since if buffering does go to zero, I'll get a small ammonia spike.

Given that he is far the largest fish and eats about as much as the rest combined, I blame him...

It is not fully clear if he is a common or a sailfin, last time the opinions differed. I'll post his pic a bit later.

As for the growth pattern, it is bizarre. He stabilized at 6.5" last winter, I thought he is done, but he went into rapid growth again after a levamisole treatment (makes one wonder)...nearly 4" more since March, and I think it is this recent wild growth is the cause of the problems.

 

[mikev]

The fellow in question (resting on an extra bag of crushed corals which does not help)

 

[LisaLQ]

Liposarcus pardalis aka common plec. But to be a fussy pants, there are apparently three different species called common plecs, but sailfin/gibbies aren't one of them.

He'll get to 12-18".

 

[mikev]

Liposarcus pardalis aka common plec.
....
He'll get to 12-18".

LisaLQ, thanks, but how do you know? (I'm not questioning, I'm just curious how you ID'd him).
Asacr, high number of veins in the dorsal like he has implies eventually larger size.

 

[LisaLQ]

I've owned them in the past, and have had my last one id'ed on some plec sites.

Most common plecs over here are these now, well - at least in my area?

Here's Percy, my last one (since rehomed - I had my other two many many years ago, so no piccies - but they were identical, just 12" and 18" including tail - whereas Percy was about 9" in these pics)

 

[mikev]

Thanks, Lisa,

Pattern-wise he is identical to yours....the head shape seems to be different, but hopefully this does not matter (maybe it is the sex difference?). OK, assume common.

I'm not rehoming him....I probably should but he is the largest & oldest fish around here and I have to pay for the mistake of getting him.

 

[LisaLQ]

Good on you - at the time I rehomed him my oscar was picking on him so he had to go in a much smaller tank, which wasn't a long term solution.