flatfish

welcome aboard

My tiger lotus (regular and variety rubra) have flowered several times but I haven't bothered to keep the seeds. I did have a standard tiger lotus drop all its seeds in the tank and they germinated easily enough. From memory there is least one post on here about growing them from seed. They haven't flowered in a while but I can keep a seed head if they do it again.

Hi, this Sunday (12th May) the UHAS will be having their annual tank crawl. We will be visiting 4 Kapi-Mana club members tanks in Tawa and Wainuiomata. All welcome. PM me if you are interested in attending. cheers Darren

Cool. Congratulations. They are a great looking pleco and if it doesn't eat enough algae you can always get another one to keep it company. :lol:

They both belong to the same suckermouth catfish subfamily (Hypoptopomatinae) but they belong to different groups (tribes). So they are related but not closely. Otocinclus tend to move throughout the water column whereas pitbulls spend most of their time on the bottom. According to the experts Parotocinclus species need clear, unpolluted, oxygen rich water, and they can be tricky to keep. However, pitbull plecos seem to be an exception as they are collected in large numbers in waters polluted by human effluent, so I guess thats makes them fairly hardy. They are apparently best kept in groups.

Hi randomsam1001, Gold spot dwarf plecos (Parotocinclus spilosoma) are on the approved list but I haven't personally seen them here. They are a cool looking little pleco and would be a neat alternative to their relie the pitbull plecos (P. jumbo).

Caryl is still after more articles for the May Aquarium World. Surely someone must have something they could put together quickly - after all it is the school holidays.

Welcome.

Awesome. Congratulations

I haven't kept Africans cichlids for years but those Altos are stunning lokking fish. Almost worth getting a tank for them. Almost.

Congratulations :nfs:

:nfs: Congratualtions. It looks like theres a few batches in there.

Sorry to hear about your losses. That really sucks.

Very nice pleco. They were on one of the importers lists recently but only for a short time.

Awesome little guys. Congratulations.

sounds good. I'll look forward to the updates

:thup: Four issues of the Aquarium international magazine are available for free (http://www.aquariuminternational.com). Its a good read but unfortunately they are no longer publishing.

Have you got the book L-catfishes by Ingo Seidel. If you're getting into your fancy plecos its a great book. You can buy it from Amazon.

As David says they will growth will be noticable if well fed and in a large tank. They are a big messy fish and I think to many people keep them in smallish tanks and underfeed them. I used to have one which grew from a small juvenile to a large size in just few years. If you got one, just make sure you feed it mainly veggie based foods. Keep meaty foods to a minimum. Large ones are available at times as they often get to big for peoples tanks.

I'll be there. You'll receive your payment shortly.

Is Little Barrier island not already pest free?

that's awesome news. Now they can start trying to build the numbers up.

If you get the big tank theres no reason why you couldn't try a couple of royals and as David says a green or blue phantom and a gold nugget. They all get to 20 cm+ and look awesome when big. Both green phantoms and gold nuggets have been selling for about $140 each lately which is a very good price.

Royal plecos are great if you have the tank space. They are basically a giant version of a clown (Panaque (Panaqolus) maccus) or tiger pleco (Panaque (Panaqolus) sp. L002). So largely vegetarian plecos that also require wood in their diet. Only feed them very small quantites of meaty foods (i.e. bloodworms, shrimps, or any commercial food with a high protein content) as their digestive system isn't designed for a high protein diet and they may die from it. Some online info reports they are slow growers. I found with a good diet and in a large healthy tank they can grow reasonably fast, i.e to largely full grown in 3 or 4 years. They can be stroppy as adults, particularly towards other royals. Suitable tank mates would be other largely vegetarian plecos. They may be fine with their smaller cousins, eg. clown plecos, tiger plecos, flash plecos) but I'd go for other larger species, say a green phantom if you want another fancy pleco, or possibly a Baryancistrus (eg. gold nugget or snowball). Rember they will grow large so dont overstock your tank with other big plecos.