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Want to start a 120g SA/CA cichlid tank. What kind of Pleco would you recommend? Don't want something that will get huge but want something that can take care of itself with these cichlids, maybe something armored. Thanks in advance guys!:?:

Hi there Greg.

What type of cichlids are they?

Severum, Blue Acara and maybe a firemouth, the mildly aggressive types. Been keeping them for 20 years or so now but got away from them for the last 5 years and went with Africans. back to SA for me, Africans are too unpredictable!

I've not kept any of those cichlids, so someone correct me if my recommendations are wrong, but I would go with a Pseudacanthicus or Leporancanthicus sp.

Check out the cat-elog.
http://www.planetcatfish.com/catelog/ge ... enus_id=40
http://www.planetcatfish.com/catelog/ge ... enus_id=64

These are some of my favourite plecs, and i'm sure they can hold their own.

The won't grow too big (unlike a common or gibby) either.

Bear in mind these fish won't eat your algae though.

i just want to say that its best to check your lfs's to find what you actually can get and then do some research in the catelog and ask questions about specific species here. Its a bit hard for us to recommend things you might not be able to buy anyways and in fact you can almost put any plec in there as most species grow pretty slow.

I agree with Stiffmeister - see what you can get, then figure out what you want from there...

I would like to add that most plecos would hold their own against similar sized cichlids. They are all fairly well armoured, but the ones racoll mentions are a little bit more armoured and may be better if you get the more agressive varieties or have difficulty finding nicely sized plecos (cichlids tend to grow faster than plecos, in general).

Of course, in the US there's always mail-order options available - but virginia shouldn't be too bad for fish-finding anyways (from what I understand, anyways), there's a few good shops within a days driving distance - much worse for those guys living in the midwest or, say, Texas where the distances are greater and the fishkeeping density lower...

One problem with Psaudacanthicus and Leporacanthicus (and several other species, such as Hypancistrus for example) is the food-habits. If they eat meaty products, you may have problems feeding them, because the cichlids will eat the food first... Much better option then would be herbivore or wood-eating plecos (small Panaque's for example), which will eat things that the cichlids will struggle to devour in seconds and that lasts a bit longer in the tank - that way, even if the cichlids like to eat the vegetable, at least you can put enough in there to last overnight without the water going off completely in an instant - that don't always work well with shrimp or mussels for example...

And of course, a set of well-placed and well-anchored pleco-sized caves for the fish to hide in will improve their survival chances should someone decide to "go after them" by a huge amount...

--
Mats

my rhino pleco a while back when a 6" Jack Dempsey was with him. my rhino would chase him around in circles.