Pleco with goldfish?? Please help Newbie!!

lewisss · Post by **lewisss** » 26 Aug 2007, 11:15

Hi, My Daughter was given a goldfish 8 years ago and since then it has outgrown 4 fish tanks. Its body is about 5'' long witth a tail of about 2''.about 2 months ago we purchased a juwel 4' tank with filter and after after a month bought a 1" yellow goldfish and a 1"black moor. I would love to keep a pleco as well with them as I have heard that they can live with goldfish? the light from the aquarium is keeping the temperature to about 24°. I have a couple of oxygenating plants and a 'cave' made from bogwood. I have added the aerator to the juwel tank but was thinking about adding a hydort ario4 aerator as well.
Also my water hardness is of the scale. I have used 10 gallons(uk gallons)55 litres of RO water to exchange and levels are now down to the following GH 60ppm KH 120ppm pH 6.5 NO2 (Nitrite) 0-0.5ppm NO3 (nitrate) 40-80ppm ammonia 0

so basically my questions are as follows
1. Can I Keep a pleco with the goldfish? (want a orange Spot Pleco)
2. Do I need to change the water again to get the hardness lower
3. Is the ph ok
4. Are the goldfish ok at 24°
5. Should i get an additional aerator to increaqse oxygen
6. I have brown algae at the moment should I wait until it goes green before introducing a pleco

Thank you so much in advance

Lewisss

MatsP · Post by **MatsP** » 27 Aug 2007, 22:37

The subject of "goldfish and plecos" is often one of debate. It appears that large plecos that suffer from malnutrition will attack goldfish - particularly the more fancy varieties that tend to be slow swimmers. Others claim that it's fine and the plecos that attack other fish are just the "rotten apples that spoil the entire barrel". I'll leave it to you to determine if you are willing to take that risk or not.

I take it you mean when you say "Orange spot pleco".

Let me clarify one thing: This fish will almost certainly not fix any algae problems - whilst it looks similar to the algae-eating varieties of the Loricariidae family, they actually live by eating wood, and will at best scrape of some algae in search of something better to eat, but definitely not a "algae-lover". I have similar fish, from a diet standpoint, - and to keep the tank clean, I have added a small , as the tank was starting to be "a green mess".

To your direct questions:
1. Yes.

2 & 3. I think you need to keep a constant pH & hardness, rather than worry about it's absolut values. I kept my P. maccus in water that is essentially the "liquid concrete" that is standard in Southern England. They were fine - of course, they seem happier in my nearly pure ROwater that they live in now, but that's mainly because I'm attempting to breed them. [By the way, 10 Imp gallons -> 80 pints -> 45 liter]. I wouldn't worry about the pH and hardness, but your nitrate is a bit on the high side - not at all saying that a pleco won't be OK with it, but it's above "recommended levels".

4. Goldfish are pretty hardy to various temperatures, but if you look at the temp recommendations for P. albomaculatus I would say that you probably want to go to the upper half of the 20's at least - I'd recommend 28'C for this fish, if not higher. Unfortunately, that's outside the comfortable range for goldfish (yes, they will survive up to about 35'C for a few days or weeks, but they are more comfortable below 22'C or so).
5. Possibly a good idea in general. I'm not familiar with any fish that "complains" about too much oxygen in the water - I'm sure such a think exists, but they are on the rare side...
6. If you buy a pleco such as