What species is this guy?

[SpidersWeb]

I bought him as 'Assorted Pleco', but assumed he was a Redspot Sailfin (Glyptoperichthys gibbiceps) but he has a big lyretail, and no spots on his sail fin.

First picture shows what he looks like, but the second smaller picture shows the colours better.

Just curious

[mustcooktea]

I can't see your pictures but did you work out what your pleco is?

MCT

[SpidersWeb]

Sorry, forgot to pay my hosting bill

Yeah pretty sure he's a Redspot Sailfin, just has more of a tiger type pattern (no red spots) and a lyre-tail, otherwise body shape etc is all identical to my smaller redspot.

[SpidersWeb]

Oh here is another question about him though.

He is leaving long long strands of thick green poop all over the place. At the moment I have a 20cm ish reel of the stuff in my Java Fern, and he's carrying one twice his body length :-?

I thought it might be time to lay off feeding him his algae tabs, but if I dont, he gets rather agro when I feed the others flakes, chases other fish looking for his algae tabs and will splash the surface :-? also hangs on the front of the tank in the middle of the day until I drop one.

Just wondering about opinnions on that. My smaller red spot is a lot more civilised. Still leaves the long poo though :-?

[SpidersWeb]

haha yeah, the irony is though I originally got a redspot to help clean the mess on the bottom but they're making the mess now. I left them without algae tabs tonight, but did feed the big guy some blood worms (you can basically hand feed them to him). He also ate 4 algae tablets earlier in the day.

Tank has 1900L/hr filtration with carbon so its not causing any problems for fish or odour or anything just looks rather odd.

Beautiful fish for the money though. We built him a huge cave that he defends. Once this new tank is setup I'll move out some of the extra rocks and plants to give him some more room and move the other redspot temporarily until I get some L052 or L144.

[sharn]

hahah red spots (commons etc too) always make alot more mess than they clean up IMO and they just love decorating tanks with tinsel poo :lol: not much you can do about it except hope it breaks up into less noticable bits and you clean it out haha.

id also remove the carbon, its a ongoing hassle which isnt really needed in a healthy tank. its best left to be used to remove meds and such, for 'quick cure' occasions JMO

[Faran]

An he's still a baby. Wait til he grows into a decent size and starts leaving some SERIOUS poos laying around. All catfish are a bit messy (even BNs and GBAs) but if you aren't constanty feeding them specialized foods they clean up more mess than they make. Gotta run, have a big set of new tanks to set up!

[SpidersWeb]

Gotta run, have a big set of new tanks to set up!

oooo

Yeah actually to their credit I found a strip of algae, behind the thermostat where they couldn't get it, so they're still doing their duties. They've also done a great job of removing the fake algae on one of my decorations :-?

[SpidersWeb]

Sorry for spamming up the Catfish section, but thought I'd put yesterday's update in just cause

Ok, so I worked all night on Sunday, and Monday morning, then slept in the afternoon, which meant I didn't put in as many algae tabs. Anyway this made the big guy a bit more territorial I guess, as he rather injured my other poor redspot who has a large white scar mark with a hole in the middle now. The smaller redspot doesn't seem bothered by his wound, and is eating and happy as, but I've moved him in to my 30L tank temporarily.

Had a couple of young female Firemouths who weren't doing to well with the big guys and had stopped eating, so put them in the 30L as well. Will move the three of them in to the new 200L tank in the weekend when I set it up.

Honestly I had no idea pleco's were so grumpy. In the past I only ever had one in a tank, but I had friends who had more than one, so I just thought they were 'community' types. This big guy chases anything that goes near his cave, and would get very agro if he saw the other redspot with an algae tab, and would stroll the tank to make sure nobody ate any of them (even if I put 4 tablets in there).

Kind of annoying as I want to plant the new tank, and dont want a redspot in there. So guess I'll be offering the little guy up for adoption to a good home in the near future. Get some GBAs perhaps.

Also did a big tank clean and re-arranged my main 200L last night, looks great, but Captain Fat over here thought'd be absolutely fantastic if he pulled up all my Java moss, and Java ferns out of the driftwood :-? Besides the marble queen which has rooted itself like a tree, think I'll keep that tank plant-free.

Fun fun, hope all is well with everyone's tanks

blue - I'll have to pop around and check out those new tanks also need to do a little plant shopping

[SpidersWeb]

id also remove the carbon, its a ongoing hassle which isnt really needed in a healthy tank. its best left to be used to remove meds and such, for 'quick cure' occasions JMO

Yeah, I agree, I've got it in there to help remove left-overs from the worm tablets etc when I tried treating the tank. Top tray has carbon and coral sand (to stabilise and raise pH/GH/KH). I heard carbon removes stuff like urine, I do kind of like that idea, I'd hate to swim in my own personally but yeah I will remove it in a few weeks and replace with some ceramic noodles.

[sharn]

mmm plecos can be nasty buggers :lol: commons very rarely tolerate each other with the bigger picking on the smaller (happened when i had two in one tank), as youve seen hes picked out his spot and its all his now :lol: i used to watch my big girl push round my oscar when Frank had something she wanted to eat, the O didnt know what to make of her and sometimes nudged her back only to get pushed harder :lol:

i am unsure about the whole carbon removing urine thing. fish excrete ammonia (which is their pee i think) in their waste which gets taken out by the good bacteria.