Your thoughts on over crowding plecos

All posts regarding the care and breeding of these catfishes from South America.
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Connie
Posts: 68
Joined: 14 Mar 2003, 20:26
Location 1: Illinois

Your thoughts on over crowding plecos

Post by Connie »

On another board a guy stocks his tanks like people some african cichlids.
The less territory they have the less aggresion in the tank and it works for him and he has I think 5 tanks and over 40 plecos.
I wouldnt go that far I have 9 tanks at the moment just tore down two for space for my 125 gallon.
I have
an
L114
L015
L021
L022
L052
L162
L168
L191
L190
L270
L029
and a couple species of bristlenoses.
I want to get an L134 and an L204.
My biggest tank is a 55 gallon and smallest a 10 gallaon and tanks all different sizes inbetween.
I dont have any plecos in the 125 gallon as of now but have many catfish mostly asian in it.
In a 55 gallon I have a royal, chocolate zebra and a common in there with no problems and in another I have 4 plecos the largest being 14 inches.
I would like to put in 3 species in my 125 gallon the biggest one being my 14 inch and then I was thinking my vampire and the cactus pleco.
Or I could put the vampire in the 55 gallon with the royal, zebra and common.
In other tanks I have all smaller species or plecos which are small at the moment.
What do you all think of mixing plecos? SO far the only problem I have had is a small bristlenose attaching a larger sailfin but that is about it.
Connie
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Yann
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Post by Yann »

Hi!

Well Personnally Idon't think overcrowding a pl*co tank is a good idea, because, Loricariids mostly live on the bottom part of the tank, so it is mainly a 2 dimension life, cichlids from the great rift lakes would use the 3 dimensions of the tank, the territories would be mainly guard by males with females swimming rather freely here and there, which is clearly not the case with Loricariids as both male and female use cave and have territories.

Secondly you will be mixing species of various size, the biggest fish might not suffer from this but the smallest species might

You sure can mix different species together in a tank but I would make sure that they have about the same size, requirement and are not over territorial or agressive towards the other. If you design the setup of your tank well, allowing the current to go everywhere without much of "dead" zone, by placing your cave smartly, not too close from eachothers and allow each fish to have his own territory, that should be good.
I would also place more caves and hiding place than there are fish so they can rather choose what place they want.

Cheers
Yann
Don't Give Up, Don't Ever Give Up!
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