PlanetCatfish.com

First, a question: why does no one spell out "cichlid" here?

Anyway, I am setting up a 180-gallon tank which will house some (eventually) large South American cichlids. The particular fish are Crenicichla acutirostris (a "peaceful" but large-growing pike) and Hoplarchus psittacus (true or green parrot). The tank has a Pangea background, which I have heard can be chewed up by wood-eating plecos, like the royal. I am looking for a pleco (or plecos) to add to the tank, and am looking for some recommendations. The things I'm looking for:
-must have some size. While the fish that will be in the tank are not the terrors that I have in some of my tanks, anything less than half the size of the pike might be too tempting to pass up. I am not interested in feeding that kind of expensive food to my fish.
-must do some cleanup work, both in the algae and leftover food departments. I have a rhino pleco in a different tank that does a marvelous job...would like the same type of qualities, but would prefer a little diversity between the tanks.
-I would prefer to see the pleco every now and then.
-I want to avoid one that is a high risk of chewing the background.
-I want a pleco that can stand up to the cichlids, without necessarily being too aggressive.

What would you recommend?
Thanks!

Ummm...thanks?
No disrespect intended, but I had already determined that I would need a large pleco. I appreciate the wealth of information on this site, and I have spent many hours/days/weeks reading through it. I currently have 30 tanks running, primarily Central American and South American cichlids. In most, I use albino bristlenose plecos; in my other 180, I keep a rhino (see above). I know that the bnps will not be large enough, given the other occupants of the tank that I am stocking. I am looking for something that will be a little bit different from the rhino. Although I have read many profiles, I wanted to see if I could get some feedback from people who actually keep some of these plecos. If this is not an appropriate question, then I apologize...

I think you'd want a . Unfortunatley, they are not so easy to find these days...

Sorry not to be better help at the moment.

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Mats

Not a problem. I have several that I may be able to get through my lfs, and several more that would be available through online sellers. I expect that a gibbiceps would eventually get too large, but might work for a while...my lfs had a very nice albino for many months, but they finally managed to kill it a couple of months ago (before I had room for it).

Yes, certainly "rescuing" a larger "common" from a local shop is a good option. My LFS usually have a couple of fairly large specimens in stock almost any time... You can always take it back to the shop when it's beyond what you can cope with and swap it for one that is smaller...

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Mats

believe it or not, Walmart around here sells fish that look a lot like h. plecostomus. They are brown with darker brown spots. They sell these as common plecs. All the other LFS's around here sell the paradalis type of "common." I don't know what your walmart situation is, but it might be worth checking out.

I would recommend a very long quarantine on any walmart fish, too.

**edit....I have a couple L001's and they do great work, look nice, and are big and tough enough to handle cichlids. Just a thought.

Most H. plecostomus shop-signs are actually for Glyptoperichthys spp. or Liposarcus spp. Easy(?) way to tell them apart is the number of dorsal rays - 7 for Hypostomus, 10+ for Glyptoperichthys/Liposarcus.


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Mats