Tiger Barbs V Pleco

[Jue]

Hi

I've just purchased a Rio 180L today and would quite like to stock it with Tiger Barbs and a couple of small Pleco. My question is will they live happily together and if so how many Tiger Barbs would be acceptable?

Thanks
Jue

 

[demonmagus]

methinks tiger barbs are only aggresive if in numbers of less than eight, and your small plecos should do well ???

Wait for other opinions though

 

[sylvia]

The barbs need to be in a group of at least 7 but would not otherwise pose any problems as long as you don't keep any particularly slow or long-finned fish. A couple of plecs would work as long as you pick a species that stays small and, in most cases, as plecs are generaly territorial, you may find keeping more than one is a slight problem. One species I can reccomend is the bristlenose pleco. If you can find yourself a male and female, they'll get along quite well as a pair.

 

[Jue]

Thanks very much for your advice. Do you know anything about Snowball Plecs? Do they grow quite large or stay small? What about other small catfish - can you think of any species that would be suitable?

Thanks
Jue

 

[VeryFatbloke]

Hi Jue

I have a snowball pleco (L102) and he is about 6 inches at the moment, I've only had him for about 6 weeks and he is quite shy. He has, or causes, no problems with the other fish in my tank. I've added the link below to the Planet Catfish site which should give you all the information you need. And also a link to the thread I started with a couple of pictures.

Hope this helps.

Gary

http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?showtopic=116838

http/www.planetcatfish.com/catelog/loric...ancis/204_F.PHP

 

[Jue]

Hi Gary

Thanks for the link. Fred looks absolutely lovely. To be honest I would compromise on anything else that I wanted in my tank so long as I could have a couple of Plec in there. They are just wonderful and seem to have so much character to them.

Somewhere local to me is selling Snowballs at £39 each so I might take a look when I've got the tank ready. They are about 2.5-3 inches long, so I don't know whether that is a reasonable price or not?

We are just going through the process of cycling a smaller tank (40l) for my son at the moment, and he has had a 2.5 inch gold nugget on order since the middle of November. We can't wait for the cycling to be completed so that we can get him home now.

Jue