You could try more hiding places and/or more plants. You can also try feeding in several different areas of the tank (to minimize this type of fighting). Sometimes rearranging all the decorations (thus distrubing everyone's territory) helps. My experience with plecos is that they have different ...

Thanks for all the replies! Here's a little more info:
Sometimes my fish's underside is white with mottled brown marks (usually if I have to turn the light on at night). Most of the time it is mottled yellowish-brown. He is a very fat fish, but he eats surprisingly little. Also, I suspect that he ...

I have had this fish for a little over three years and it has not grown at all (it is approximately 4" long). It appears to eat wood. It also eats bloodworms and any type of wafers and vegetables. It has a dark blackish-brown body with yellow stripes and odontodes on operculum and pectoral fins. It ...

I have an albino bristlenose that digs like crazy. He is in a tank with an unidentified peckoltia and a blue ram. This tank is in my bedroom and unfortunately there is gravel bouncing off the tank walls throughout the night. I don't know why he does it--hopefully not attempting to make a nice cave ...

Can anyone tell me what types of leaves, fruit, and seeds rubbernoses might have access to in their natural habitat? Or any plants or types of algae that grow in the streams they inhabit?

Hey, congratulations! I think I may attempt a bristlenose breeding project in the summer (if finances and time allow), so you might see me asking for tips. How big of a tank did you use? Where are you in PA, if you don't mind me asking?

Yesterday I saw the telltale white spots on several fish in my 55 gallon tank and in my rubbernose tank. All of my rubbernoses are affected and today the spots look worse. In my main tank, a hypancistrus and a clown pleco and also my severum and geophagus are affected.
Can anyone please advise me of ...

I purchased 2 peckolitas several months ago (they look like L009 but are very big; I am not sure if they are, need some pictures to post). Anyways, I was trying to buy several of them to breed. I have one with huge spines all over its body (It always sits in a cave and when it is backlit, this fish ...

Do you have any plants in the tank? My rubbernoses have always been finicky eaters, but after I added plants (java fern, lots of java moss, and anubias), they rarely touch any type of wafer. They have looked healthy and happy for months like this, with very full stomachs. Have you tried zucchini ...

I'd pay it. It would be fantastic to have a shirt with a Loricariid on it, even L046, which gets more than enough press as it is. What about a goldy, though? Or Chaetostoma?

If there is any algae in the tank, they take it out fast. They scrub every surface spotless except one small piece of driftwood (to which the java fern is attached). The clump of java moss is very large. There was only one snail amidst all the plants which has grown to be about 1" over several ...

There is nothing in the tank except seven rubbernoses. They are all very small (2 1/2" or less). I feed them Hikari sinking pellets, but usually only 2 or 3 times a week (and only 2 or 3 pellets). I have posted many questions about feeding them because of all my plecos, they are the most finicky ...

About 3-4 months ago, I added a lot of anacharis, some java moss, and java fern to my rubbernose tank. Around that time, they stopped eating their algae wafers. They all have beautifully full stomachs. I am just mystified because the rubbernoses look good and the plants still look pretty good. I ...

Do you ever watch it at night? Plecos are great fish for night people because that is pretty much the only time a lot of them come alive. I always watch my fish for a while after turning the light off; some eat immediately, some wait for an hour or more before venturing out and are sure to be ...

Thanks for the help, that is very comforting to hear that it is not excess chlorine. I am doing large water changes, and it is hard to let it sit because I have to run the Python from my basement. Would it help to add airstones during the water change to increase the oxygen?

I will lug the water ...

The past two times I have done water changes with a python in my 55 gal tank, there were tons of bubbles that took about 10 minutes to completely dissipate. This has never happened before, just the past two weeks. My father said the water seemed to smell really strongly of chlorine, but I can barely ...

Just another two cents...
I have made several posts over the past year or so about my very aggressive common pleco. Mysterious things (and deaths) have occurred in the tanks I have kept it in (and nothing mysterious in my other tanks). I have witnessed this pleco harassing other plecos, cichlids ...

Just wanted to say that Silurus has given me a lot of advice about chaetostoma; I took it, and it worked. I think that being held in a shop at temps between 78-80 is very stressful for rubbernoses, so be prepared that you might have problems even if you do everything you can for them. It seems to me ...

Thank you for the suggestions, I will get some Hikari carnivore pellets next time I am out because it is hard to feed frozen meaty things every night (and not so good for water quality). Since Barbie first replied to my post, I have fed frozen bloodworms and a frozen shrimp, and my fish's color is ...

Thank you! Now that you mention foods, in his old home this fish lived with a black ghost that received frozen bloodworms every night (and of course a fair amount of the bloodworms got sucked up by the plecos). I will try feeding some bloodworms at night again and maybe he can get his bold stripes ...

I have an unidentified striped hypancistrus (I thought for a long time that it was an L333, but now I am not so sure and I am unfortunately a horrendous photographer). The fish used to have bold yellow squiggly stripes, but now the stripes are very faded and thinner. Its odontodes (on its gill ...

Always look for a pleco you intend to get in the Cat-e-log on this site to see what is known about its requirements. (And particularly beware of rubbernose plecos because they require mid 60s to low 70s temperatures and thus cannot be kept with pretty much any other plecos. I learned this the hard ...

The Catfish Convention was fantastic! I am really hoping that there is another one next year.

Shane,
Cool article and it was great meeting you at the catfish convention! Could Loricariids really be found in PA, as the article states? (I am in PA and it has been really nippy here all summer, let alone our winter temps. Just doesn't seem pleco-friendly.)

Did you happen to notice the fish's belly when you purchased it? Never buy a pleco that doesn't have a full belly! No matter how much care you try to put into it, a fish with a sunken stomach (even just a little sunken) is often beyond help. They just kind of give up on eating. Also, it is my ...

A venerable source told me that bristlenoses can be very misleading because a fish whose growth has been stunted by something like poor water quality may be mature enough to exhibit the characteristic bristles at a very small size. In this case, although the fish is mature it will never attain its ...

I have lost three rubbernoses (1" in size or smaller) and I think that it was due to their not feeding as their stomachs appeared hollow. I recently purchased two more that are around the 1" mark and today one was on the glass and its stomach looked hollow. I feed Hikari sinking wafers (my other ...

It would probably be a better idea (especially with a super-hardy fish like a betta that can be easily moved around), to put it in its own treatment tank. This is pretty much always the way to go, because it is never good to add extra chemicals to other fish in the tank that are healthy.

Catfish ...

Thank you both for the replies. I usually change the water once a week (sometimes a little less). The levels of everything are always good and it is always sparkling clear, so I was really confused about the worms.
Can you tell me any loaches that will not suffer at 70-72 F and will not be ...

I have three small rubbernoses in a 10 gallon tank (ammonia 0.0, nitrite 0.0, nitrate around 5mg/L, pH 7.5, temperature 72 F). Recently while cleaning, I noticed very small white worms (and a disturbingly large amount of them) floating in the water column when I was cleaning the gravel. When the ...