My L-number collection so far!

[ThatPlecoGuy]

75G planted amazon stock list as Follows:
2 Clown Panaque L-104
2 Snowball plecos L102
1 Flash pleco L-204
1 Green Phantom L-200
1 "Yellow King Tiger Pleco" L-333
1 columbian zebra pleco L-129
1 Royal pleco L-191 (juvenile)
1 Albino Bristlenose pleco
1 "Red bristlenose pleco"
1 Three beacon pleco L-091
1 "Ranger pleco" (Pterygoplichthys punctatus

http://imgur.com/gallery/48L0B

[nvcichlids]

IMO, too many fish, and a chance for hybrids.

[bekateen]

Hi @ThatPlecoGuy,

Welcome to PlanetCatfish. You have a beautiful collection of plecos there, and they look well cared for.

One ID correction, your "

L102

snowballs (=

Hypancistrus inspector

)" are not that; they are

L201

. The former typically doesn't have many (or any) white spots on the dorsal and tail fins, which are bordered with obvious black edges. L201 has spots continuing onto the dorsal and tail fins in the same pattern as the rest of the body, with no dark black trim to those fins.

IMO, too many fish, and a chance for hybrids.

From the photos, your tank is in good shape, but nvcichlids makes two very valid points -

• Although your plecos are small now (in particular, your Panaque, triactis, and punctatus) and the tank may be healthy under current conditions, of course your fish will grow, and some of them will grow big. The level of crowding is a serious concern over time.
• You are keeping several species of the same genus in the tank (specifically,
  Panaqolus maccus
  and
  Panaqolus albivermis
  ; also, your
  L129
  (debilittera),
  L333
  , and the
  L201
  are all Hypancistrus). Perhaps not so much among the Panaqolus, but with the Hypancistrus, there is a risk of hybridization once they mature, which most hobbyists try to avoid and actively discourage. Your Ancistrus may look different, but they are considered to be the same species,
  Ancistrus cf_cirrhosus
  (just different line-bred strains) as opposed to wild-type species. So if they breed together nobody worries about that (although you may very well end up with plain old brown fry).

I would add a third concern, and that is of diet - the Panaqolus and Panaque species are primarily wood and veggie eaters; the Hypancistrus prefer a more meaty diet. Of course it doesn't hurt if the hypans get some veggies mixed in with their meaty foods, and it's good for the vegetarians to get some meat occasionally; but the big risk is that the vegetarians will overeat the meaty foods and develop a digestive disorder known as bloat, which can be lethal. The problem arises because the vegetarians are opportunistic meat-eaters, so usually they will eat meat even when they shouldn't. For this reason, it would be wise to separate the wood/veggie eaters from the meat eaters.

If you are able, I would encourage you to consider splitting the various hypans to different tanks to avoid hybridization. This will simultaneously solve the dietary problem and most of the overcrowding problem too. That said, you've chosen to become the steward of three beautiful large plecos (Panaque, the puntatus, and the triactis). As they grow, you're going to need bigger tanks.

Good luck, and thanks for sharing your beautiful fish.

Cheers, Eric

P.S., I see you're from Las Vegas. Cool. I grew up there as a child - Crestwood Elementary and John C. Fremont Jr High. I used to live near the corner of Sahara and Maryland Pkwy. Back in the 60s' and 70's there was a wide-open swath of undeveloped desert land there. My brother and I would chase and capture lizards and snakes there. It was a zoological goldmine with close to 10 species of lizards back then (I can recall 2-3 species of fence lizards, plus side-blotch lizards, whiptails, horned toads, chuckwallas, and more, plus all the snakes).

[ThatPlecoGuy]

Wow! Thank you for such comprehensive feedback.

Your concerns are mostly the same as mine, for starters the whole tank doesn't get much meat.
I'm talking a block or two of bloodworms and some krill every two weeks or so, high quality pleco pellets every day or two and raw veggies once a week. In addition to that I feed my mid and top dwellers marine flake and new life spectrum pellets so they get whatever they miss from that too, so the diet is varied but not too high on meat. My worry is that my more timid fish aren't eating enough, but I can fix that if it becomes a problem.

As much as I love my royal, it is not a permanent resident of this tank. I bought it a few weeks ago because it was about to die and I knew I could help, he is now healthy and will be re-homed eventually.
The punctatus was an impulse buy that once I identified later I knew he wasn't going to stay with me too long either.
I have many friends here in town with big tanks so passing these guys on shouldn't be too hard.
As for the Triactis, nine and a half inches in a few years seems manageable to me and it's my favorite, so he stays.
I work at my LFS on Sundays so there will be bigger tanks eventually, I got this 75 for free!


As for hybridization, I did not know that was frowned upon until today.
I don't believe it will happen due to a lack of, and competition for caves. If they did manage to breed somehow all the fry would surely die.

I knew there was some risks in going for a varied loricariid community, but I have seen so many videos of them online and figured it would work itself out. I had two smaller freshwater tanks for a while and combined them into the larger one to save some space and stop complaints from my roomates, once i'm free of them more tanks will come into play.
My main concern has been with fighting, of which there has been very little. A good friend of mine (who has kept way more than myself over the years and frequents these and plecoplanet's forums) suggested that if I were to have all my plecs together to over crowd a bit to deter territorial behavior, if they can't establish set territory then they will just be on the defensive and keep to themselves. It seemed logical and over these last few weeks appears to be panning out,
but I am still worried about them.

As for Vegas, I have been extremely disappointed in the lack of cool wildlife in my area. I saw a gecko on my house once and that's been it.