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All,

I picked up 2 sailfin Pleckos about 2 months ago. One is lighter colored with dark spots and the other is dark in color with light spots. When purchased at the LFS they were similar in size. Now the lighter colored one is 3 times as large as the darker colored one. What would the reasoning be? I bought them at a very reputable LFS in the area. Is this just different growth rates? Is one a female and one a male?


Confused and trying to comprehend,


Scott

Well first are you sure they're both gibbiceps plecos? If they are, and both are healthy, then I would guess one is much more dominant and is eating all the food, or most of it at least.

Perhaps you should feed them as usual then turn the lights out and wait a few moments then shine a flashlight on the tank and see what's going on, see if the bigger one is being a bully. If that's the case I would put food at separate ends of the tank.

It could be one getting most of the food as previously stated. This could become a difficult situation unless this an extremely large tank. Gibbys can be very territorial with their own kind.

Hi-

Beersnob's wife here.

Sadly, I found that the smaller pleco had passed away last night. Without going through pictures of the whole L-series, he looked similar to Glyptoperichthys joselimaianus (L 001) from what I remember. I'll have to see if I took any photos of him and will post if I do. If he grew at all since we got him, it wasn't much.

A little more background on these 2: over a week ago (2 weeks?) we noticed a hole in the *middle* of the small one's tail, and decided to move him to another tank to heal since it looked like someone might be picking on him. The hole had healed nicely, but now we don't know what could have killed him. The tank he was in is 29 gal, about 78 degrees, 0 ammonia, below .25 nitrItes, 10 niteAtes. Don't have tests for GH or KH. Filter is Fluval 204 (canister), substrate is Seachem Flourite Plant Substrate. We had done a water change on Sunday. Tankmates are cories, Botia Angelicus, gold goramis, clown plecoltias, and a few endlers. Up till a few days ago we had yo-yo loaches there instead of the Angelicus, but we switched out the loaches since the 29 gal had finer gravel for the Angelicus to dig in. But I don't think the Angelicus would have picked on him since they were with other small fish before and never bugged anything larger than fry. I didn't notice anything unusual about his behavior the night before.

Any ideas on what happened to the poor guy?