skippy_49nz

I still quite like the king tigers L066. Mine don't really look like most pics I see of them though. What is with the bottom part of the tail? My L270's have smoothly rounded tails.

Have you had any success in spawning these?

I used to keep these as a lad and they were greeat at catching the mosquito larvae.

Peddlers....

If there are no marks on it then its not too likely to have been roughed up by the others. How long have you had it? Sometimes they just don't seem to grow past a certain point for whatever reason and they usually die off. I see a lot in shops which look like that and it is VERY difficult to get them beyond that stage so I don't even try these days. Its a bummer, I know, but something I learned at a young age is if you have live animals, sooner or later you have to face up to their end.

Stay somewhere with aircon... its very hot! Oh... and don't be alarmed when the roaches try to carry you and your bed out at night, its just their way of saying hello.

Ok, I just read a study on the claims of Hypostomus pecostomus in Philippines and they concluded all species collected for the sample were the other "commons" which I forget the scientific name, but I believe starte with P They definitely show more of a brown hue to them than black or grey, particularly fresh from the water. They suspect that with the amount of pollution in the local rivers, they may have been introduced during a river clean drive, due to their local reputation as janitor fish. The ones I'm seeing are definitely thriving, but it seems a shame for them to be caught and left on the banks to die.

Does anyone know if these are naturally occuring or if they are introduced? I have seen the fishermen throwing common looking plecos onto the rocks and they don't seem to want them back in the water. Its in a fairly still lake so there is no river flow. Would these have been released from an aquarium or something or do they also occur outside of the South American rivers?

I disagree. If they are already paired up then they will probably remain paired but if there are no pairs, the most dominant male and female paired up for me which meant 2 crossed pairs.

I thought goldspot plecos were probably the third most commonly available in NZ behind bristlenoses and red spots so I'm also surprised at the confusion.

You could also use this for turning your fish over and scraping those stubborn plecos off the glass.

One of mine I suspect has just laid another batch of eggs and she looks really thin now. I'm feeding her up as much as I can but I'm always worried by it. Sometimes these things just seem to happen. I have had swordtails which have been really bloated for a few weeks and not had babies and gone overdue by a couple of weeks then I have found them dead one morning....

Ask them what to feed king tiger plecos! I was told spirulina and courgette... LOL. Everyone has their strengths and weaknesses. I've been in a position where the direction was fake your way if you don't know. What the... Hence I turned my back on that profession. Sometimes having a high standard of princilpes really bites you on the bum!

My dog example stands. Bulldogs are no longer anything more than pets and look at the trouble they are in. Working labs look nothing like their show and pet cousins and are far healthier because they are bred for function. As someone suggested, put some hungry fish in the tank and only the strongest and best will survive. Unfortunately natural selection has been at work with this for many thousands of years to arrive at the wild guppy. How can we expect to "improve" on this? By breeding away from the wild, we are effectively breeding towards less fit for survival. There are no easy answers...

I find they usually grow pretty rapidly on the decap brineshrimp eggs. I have one that must be close to 3 months old now and since putting it into a grown up tank it seems to have stopped growing. I know its eating because it rivals some of my plecos for crapping in the tank. I figure now its up to him. Either he grows or he can just get eaten when I put it in the big fish tank.

I'm completely basing my assessments on assumption but due to guppies being bred so far away from their natural state, I believe a LOT of inbreeding would be necessary to fix type and have them breed true. Inbreeding and close linebreeding in itself is not a problem so long as you are prepared to cull mercilessly for any slight defects or undesireables. People do it with dogs all the time to get the different types of dogs. While the dogs live a harsh and testing life things seem mostly fine. Any which are not up to it get killed as pups rather than being a drain on the owner. When good intentioned pet owners get them and move away from culling those not completely perfect, then the close breeding doubles up the problem and things go downhill fast. Sadly many dog breeds are getting in this situation now. I suspect the guppys could be the same. Very close breeding of good fish doubles up the good traits as well as the bad so as long as there are few or no bad, you should get a more consistent line. I know a guy who was breeding a close family of dogs which were coming out almost as clones. I don't know the fish genetics behind it so I won't go into that. In order to fix the problem, owners would probably need to be ruthless in their assessment of their fish and any fry and keep culling any with bent backs and so on until they stop appearing. Even then, as other people own them they too would need to be prepared to remove the less perfect specimens from the gene pool. As long as every Tom, Dick and Harry has guppies, I can't see there being enough diligence to cure the problem. Perhaps buying from well established breeders who are aware of the problems in their lines and willing to take steps to correct them will help reduce the problems. The new owner would still need to be prepared to cut out the weaker fish.

When I was young there were always some in a seasonal pool at western springs but I haven't seen them there for years. Its possible with so many eels in there now that one came in and wiped them out.

Chances are they will eat the eggs if the see them after they are laid. Then that will probably attract all the other fish to have a munch on them as well.

Can you not just buy a pair of convicts or jewels and breed a load of live food?

I let mine live out their lives and if that means I have them for another 10 years then i should have thought of that before getting them. Sadly there probably exists so much mistreatment of fish and other animals which aren't cute and furry so people let it slide.

Beside each other will be fine. I wouldn't ever recommend putting the two in a confined space together though. With time they may be ok being out together but if it were me, I would err on the side of caution and have one out at a time.

Maybe I don't have enough furazoles in my diet...

Thats mean as! I love hearing rare plecos are being bred in NZ! Time to put in my order :lol:

I'm no expert but nothing sounds too far off to me. Sometimes these things just happen and they die for no obvious reason.

Surely if the slime can grow then the chemicals are past their effectiveness.