Pleco, Oto And Cory Compatability

[Taridan]

Hello I currently have what I've been told is a 'common' pleco in a 30 gallon tank with 2 rosy red minnows and 2 female betta's and an apple snail. I've been looking into more community type fish to add, and from what I understand, Cory's eat uneatened food, where as Oto's are more for Algea? My pleco is currently about 7-8 inches long, including his tail... when we got him, he was only 4 inches. He likes both Algea waffers and Shrimp pellets, so I'm guessing he's more of the omnivorous varieties...

My Q is this: If I wanted to get Either Cory's or Oto's would they have problems with the Pleco, or would the pleco have problems with them over food, or space, or what not? Do either of these have problems with Minnows? Unfortunately I haven't been able to get any plants to grow in the tank... I have one bulb on there, which I regularly see Tucker (pleco) chewing on, so I think as long as its in there its never going to grow

Would adding some Cory's or Oto's over stock the tank? I also plan on getting more female betta's probably so the total is around 7 or 9, but the local LFS really doesn't have any variety in color so I'm going to take my time with that and probably order from Aquabid or others on the Betta section of this forum. (Cambodian Red and Red and Red are the only colors I've been able to find.), and was thinking about adding some Mollies or Guppies as well.

 

[Nevergone815]

what i would do is find a home for the common pleco as they can grow 12-18 inches depending on the type. they need a much larger tank. the pleco or cories or ottos will lack some food because of compitition. both the plecos and ottos will eat algae and compete over this. whle the plco and cories will fight over it on the bottom.

my suggestion is to find a home for the pleco (give it back to the lfs if possible) then get aq group of 3 ottos and 3 cories (all same type recommended) and you will have the algae taken care of as well as leftover food, and have a much better environment as the fish will all get along and everything will be in good size regarding tank size vs. fish size. also the ottos and cories will be much more active during all phases of the day while plecos IME seem to prefer to only come out at night mostly.

that is just my opinion though, the choice is up to you in the end. also i would get more female bettas as the yare recommended to be in groups of 4-6 to avoid aggression (unless your are fine). i don't know about the rosey red minnows. are they a type of goldfish (i.e. coldwater fish)? if so they aren't good for that set up as the rest would be tropical and they wouldn't be. but again i don't know exactly what they are so i may be mistaken.

hope i helped

 

[Taridan]

Originally I was going to get 4-5 females, but when the LFS told me they had females, they didn't say how many, and after the rude lady in butted in front of me and picked up two, there were only three left and one of them didn't look healthy at all... Since being fairly new to Betta's, I decided to get just the two, and they get along okay, with only the occasional 5 second chase by the more dominant one. I think If I'd had them in anything smaller though I'd have bites on my hand.

I think I also forgot to mention, right now my tank has no plants... a 'stump' ornament and an archway type ornament, but the Java fern I tried in there got eaten by the Apple snail and minnows. would I Need live plants, or would the Corys and Otos be okay with silk?

Originally Tucker the Sucker was supposed to go in the 55 gallon with my Fiancees oscar... they were in the 30 gallon for about 2-3 weeks until he got the larger tank, and even then there was some nipping... in the 55 gallon, the Oscar got more nippy and wouldn't quit pestering tucker, so we moved him back to the 30. I thought the rule of thumb was 1 gallon per fish, so even if he got to 24 inches, the 30 would still be big enough??

Also, with that rule of thumb, I was worried about over stocking. The minnows are your average feeder fish they get to be four inches long, and they tend to scrounge around the bottom eating stuff. I really like my Pleco and if I can't add any other bottom feeders in, I'll deal with it... I just wish they didn't poop so danged much. lol

 

[Nevergone815]

yea the poop is always a problem with the plecos. the rule of thumb is 1" of fish per gallon for a thin bodied fish that only get a few inches in length. ideally a common pleco needs a 150 gal to live when they are full grown as they need room to swim and move and they will uproot everything because they are big and clumsy. the rule i go by is that a fish should have a tank with measurements of at least 4x their length, 1.5x their width, 1.5x their height. although their are exceptions to the rule though.

a good example is that you can't have a full grown (10" i beleive) oscar in a 10 gal tank. that would be crazy.

but if you want to keep the pleco i would recommend not getting ottos or cories as you will have a fish that eats leftover foods and algae and poops a lot. so you have a great thing with a not so great trade off and adding more may throw off the balace you have in the tank.

hope i helped more

good luck!

 

[Taridan]

I talked with my fiancee about putting him back in the 55 gallon, and got a definate no. 6 I think he was getting tired of the poop as well. His growth seems to have slowed, so I'll wait a little longer and see if he gets any bigger... unfortunately, while my LFS can accept unwanted fish, they can't give you any store credit / money for them. I'll wait and see what happens I guess, since I don't have the money for more fish right now anyways.

 

[Nevergone815]

waiting is the best thing to do. they generally slow down growth rapidly once they hit the 6" mark so you should be alright. but an upgrade is still in order in the future. for now you should be ok.

money is always an issue for me too. i will spend a whole crap load of money on fish to find out that my tanks are overstocked then i have to buy a new tank and so on. my obsession started with my girlfriend getting a male betta. then the lfs had a good deal on 10 gal starter tanks and then it evolved to 2 of them, then a 29 gal, then a 55 gal and so on. oh the pain in fishkeeping

 

[Taridan]

I've always been a cat person myself, but with my fiancee being allergic to them... I had to look for some other kind of pet. Plus, my baby darling cat (Who is... 5 now?) would not be happy on anything but a farm, as he was raised as a farm cat.... now, since my mom has horses and I live in a little apartment, he gets to stay with her. I miss him, but he'd go stir crazy being stuck in side all the time... I watched him -LITERALLY- climb the walls when we had to keep them inside the two days before moving day.