OH NO Pleco!!!!!

[shoveltrash]

well......I'd read that plecos were not good tankmates for Discus. got up early this am to turn on light & see said pleco trying to suck on one of my sleeping Discus!!!!!!!! http://cosgan.de/images/midi/boese/a055.gif omg, my hands are STILL shaking http://cosgan.de/images/midi/traurig/a055.gif . I immediately removed it, put in smaller tank (he's in with 2 tiger bars & a dwarf G now....).

LESSON LEARNED.

I thought it would be fine, because I never *saw* the pleco bothering my 2 Discus. hey-ho NOPE.

yet another newbie/beginner mistake from me -- my poor fish'll be lucky if I don't kill them! http://cosgan.de/images/midi/konfus/e040.gif
.......waiting for my blood pressure & heart rate to return to normal.........

[damba]

Plecos and discus are bad news as you have found. Glad you spotted it early.

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[RudeDogg1]

Bristle nosed plecs are fine as are some other plecs they arnt all bad

[DonMD]

There are several types of plecos that coexist just fine with discus. I'd tell you their names if I knew . . . You could check with one of the sponsors here to see if they have any for sale, I'm sure those would be just fine.

[shoveltrash]

live and learn, live and learn.....
however I felt the need to post this in the beginner's section, as a warning. I'm sure most here KNOW this, but it never hurts to share bad experiences for newcomers!
my pleco isn't a bristlenose. at this point I'll just stick with my little corys!!!!

I ought to keep a diary/blog, "all the things I've done wrong" LOL.
thank goodness my fish seem just fine.

[shoveltrash]

ps - it would be interesting to have a list of "Discus safe plecos", just for information!

[Keith Perkins]

Pre-internet I always had a fondness for red-tailed sharks. That was up until I got into discus and had the same experience you had with the pleco. Fortunately the red-tailed shark was very small and the discus were full grown, but the shark went away somehow pretty quickly regardless.

[judy]

dwarf albino bristle-nosed pleco are good with discus and don't rasp on amazon sword plants, which my long-finned ABN was doing and was promptly re-homed. Though the long-finned ABN also did not bother the discus.

[LizStreithorst]

Not all common plecos bother Discus, but enough of them do to make you want to avoid them. I have one common who is 10 years old and has always been a gentleman around my Discus. Another that I bought at the same time had to be returned to the pet store because he was a bad boy.

[jimg]

dwarf albino bristle-nosed pleco are good with discus and don't rasp on amazon sword plants, which my long-finned ABN was doing and was promptly re-homed. Though the long-finned ABN also did not bother the discus.long fins not good with plants? uh oh! just switched from regular to long fin!

[TNT77]

It all depends on the pleco. I've been lucky so far and never had one rasp on discus. But on the other hand I have pulled 2 from my ray tank that tried to rasp on my rays.

[ericatdallas]

Neither my BNPs or my Columbian Zebras bother the Discus. Although I did notice that my BNPs grow like mad in my Discus tank (clean water, high protein diet, and regular feedings) compared to my pleco only tank. So a well fed pleco might have something to do with it. I also had two sailfin plecos that left my discus alone in the growout tank, but that tank received 4-6 feedings per day. Once my discus hit 4" though they did start to harass them and I gave them away (might be the size of the discus or the discus being more competitive with the food).

[judy]

long fins not good with plants? uh oh! just switched from regular to long fin!
just amazon swords, I think--- at least that's all it went after in my tank. left the crypts, anubia, aponogeton, and other plants alone...

[Altum Nut]

I have never had any issues with Albino Bristle Nose Plecos. They are cheap to buy and keep tank wall crystal clean.
Others that i have are L134, L183. You can also put L46, L333, L260 but prices for these guys are fairly high.

...Ralph

[shoveltrash]

my Discus are causing some resentment now.......the Pleco is my SO's favorite, and now he's stuck in a small tank with the 'rejects' :( (prior unsuitable tankmates from my Angel tank).

so is the Bristle Nose (only Albinos?) a guaranteed Discus-safe pleco???? I do like the cleaning nature of the fish :)

[Stag]

If they are small, Be mindful of ones over 2.5inches.


Bristle nosed plecs are fine as are some other plecs they arnt all bad

[shoveltrash]

so perhaps the dwarf BNP is safest then?

[chiligum]

It doesn't matter if a Bristlenose is long fin or short, it is still the same Bristlenose, it has just been bred with longer fins...It wont automatically destroy your plants if it has long fins, it's down to the individual Fish, not how big his fins are!!!!!

[DonMD]

Why not call some of the vendors on this site and ask them if they have any discus-friendly plecos?

[judy]

It doesn't matter if a Bristlenose is long fin or short, it is still the same Bristlenose, it has just been bred with longer fins...It wont automatically destroy your plants if it has long fins, it's down to the individual Fish, not how big his fins are!!!!!

My point was my long-finned pleco was not a dwarf ABN, and it seems the dwarfs don't rasp on amazon swords. That's been my experience more than once. long or short finned wasn't the issue, just the descriptive name for the fish.

[chiligum]

Sorry Judy, i only got half of the story...You know what i was getting at though!

[DiscusOnly]

Not all pleco are bad for discus. I have 15 small ABN in my 180 gal tank with full size discus. Not a problem at all and I never have to wipe the acrylic tank cause they keep it nice and clean.

[down2earth]

i have 3 different type of pleco in my tank. a rubber lip, a albino bristle nose, and a pets mart 2$ special. they all seem to do fine. have not had any problems with them and my discus. the 2$ one is gonig into my germen ram tank. the rubber lip is going into my sump and the bristle nose will stay in the discus tank. i plan to get 2 more bristle nose for the tank.

[judy]

I wasn't very clear on the point at all. no wonder you didn't get it

Sorry Judy, i only got half of the story...You know what i was getting at though!

[Squidman]

There are no gaurantees with any fish. I have a dwarf ABN that's been in with my discuss for about a year, no issues. Couple nights ago while I was looking at "my boys" I noticed my two biggest discuss both had big white marks on there sides. I spend alot of time staring at them and I don't think I miss much, so I'm sure that the damage happened the previous night. My ABN is the only possible culprit I, as there is no other fish in there besdies the discus. ABN came out out of the tank immediately (I was REALLY angry but decided against BBQ'ing him) and both discus look almost back to normal now a couple days later. The one thing I will mention is that I recently moved the discus and ABN out of a heavily planted 90G into a bare bottom 90G with Anubias attached to dritwood. I suspect the ABN decided there wasn't enough variety in the new setup. Regardless, no more plecos with my discus.

[DerekFF]

dwarf albino bristle-nosed pleco are good with discus and don't rasp on amazon sword plants, which my long-finned ABN was doing and was promptly re-homed. Though the long-finned ABN also did not bother the discus.

What's a dwarf abnp? You mean regular fin? The acronym isn't DABNP its ABNP. They are a small breed of pleco but the difference in long fins or regular fins is the fins, thats it. Regular fins doesnt make them dwarf, that just makes them less exotic looking. Long fin or regular fin abnp doesn't matter if they'll eat a plant or not. Its all in the fishes personal behavior. And pleco suck marks are rarely serious if you have healthy fish.

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[judy]

Dwarf ABNs don't get bigger than four inches (usually more like three), regular ABNs get to about five inches. Both are "dwarf" plecos compared to other strains... but there seems to be a growing subset of even smaller ones as breeders focus on making them smaller. there is almost no info out there on them and what there is, is conflicting, some say they exist, some say they don't. I think they do, because mine are wee guys well over a year old and barely three inches, whereas the long-finned, bought at the same time and same size, was almost five inches when I re-homed him...

[jimg]

i really don't think anyone can say they are the same so to speak it all depends on what they were crossed with to get the changes, imo it may be possible that what the regulars were bred with to get long fins may have been plant eating types. I'm not an expert on crossing lines, but when someone says their strain does something other strains don't it gets my attention to be careful

[DerekFF]

Its selectively bred abnp to make them small, not their own unique breed if pleco. And long fins are obviously going to be longer because of finnage

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[DerekFF]

There's a lot of debate on crossbreeding, but like with discus if you crossbreed your more than likely going to end up with a different color/shape/traits and that's with the same species. No take the ancistrus family with its 50+ ish different plecos in it and if you cross breed an abnp with something else.....you aren't going to get an abnp. Browns, calico, albinos, l144s can all interbreed but none of that breeding will create a dwarf. selective breeding for small size is about the only way.

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[CrazyAngels]

Not only the ABN's. Any of the dwarf Bristlenoses will take care of the tank. I have combination of longfin and standard albinos and also blue eye and a few of the normal brown. never had any issue with them, except for amazon plants, which are like lettuce to them and will eventually eat each and every one of them. So all my tanks are planted only with Anubias, as they won't touch them. HTH

[jimg]

Not only the ABN's. Any of the dwarf Bristlenoses will take care of the tank. I have combination of longfin and standard albinos and also blue eye and a few of the normal brown. never had any issue with them, except for amazon plants, which are like lettuce to them and will eventually eat each and every one of them. So all my tanks are planted only with Anubias, as they won't touch them. HTH this is a reason I questioned about long fins eating plants. I have had wild bnp and reg brown and albino bnp in planted tanks and neither ever touch a plant. I'll soon see about the long fins

[judy]

it is just amazon swords they seem to like. Nothing else. This has happened twice over five years apart with two different tanks and different fish. You'd think I'd have learned the first time.

Found this info at http://www.bestfish.com/plants.html:
Bristlenose plecostomus leave most fine leafed plants alone, but demolish the wide leaves of sword plants in particular.

and then there's this thread
http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/fish/94101-sword-plants-vs-abn.html

[shoveltrash]

wow, this thread has morphed into some really interesting discussion! :)




There are no gaurantees with any fish. I have a dwarf ABN that's been in with my discuss for about a year, no issues. Couple nights ago while I was looking at "my boys" I noticed my two biggest discuss both had big white marks on there sides. I spend alot of time staring at them and I don't think I miss much, so I'm sure that the damage happened the previous night. My ABN is the only possible culprit I, as there is no other fish in there besdies the discus. ABN came out out of the tank immediately (I was REALLY angry but decided against BBQ'ing him) and both discus look almost back to normal now a couple days later. The one thing I will mention is that I recently moved the discus and ABN out of a heavily planted 90G into a bare bottom 90G with Anubias attached to dritwood. I suspect the ABN decided there wasn't enough variety in the new setup. Regardless, no more plecos with my discus.interesting, this made me think......I had just changed my tank to BB. huh, perhaps Mr. Pleco didn't like the change? regardless, I'll just have to have some algae I guess - nothing but my little Cory bottom feeders from now on. Discus are challenging enough for me LOL!

[cambos]

I was just coming on here to post the same story regarding my bristlenose pleco! This morning when I turned on the lights, my bristlenose was stuck on the side of my discus chasing it away from where the food drops in the tank for breakfast, left a nasty white mark too. Promptly took him out and downgraded him to my sons guppie tank. I also have a golden nugget pleco who has never bothered my discus. He stays hidden most of the time and I only see him cleaning up late at night. Learned my lesson!

[DerekFF]

My bristlenose get a little aggressive when its food time. Theyll fight off discus from their "area" theyre eating pellets at

[gerrard00]

I'm getting rid of my plecos in a month or so. They've never attacked my discus, but they nibble on my swords and most surprisingly they are starting to chow down on my vals.

[makemineirish]

I am semi-new to discus keeping, but am the kind of personality that researches the heck out of everything. I currently have two planted discus tanks comprised of different communities. I have Leopard Frog Plecos (L134) in one and Queen Arabesque Plecos (L260) in the other.

I have yet to have a problem, despite the fact that both these species skew a bit more carnivorous. Algae is not much of a problem for me as long as I monitor the light and CO2 levels appropriately. Rather, I want them to clean the debris left by the discus and not eat my plants. So far, so good.

That being said, a fishkeeper far more experienced than I explained it to me this way. You can have a dog on a farm that never eats your chicken eggs. However, once one figures out that those white rocks are tasty, it doesn't matter how well fed they are. He claimed that likewise, whether or not you had a pleco that would eat your discus' slime coat largely depended on if they had figured out it was tasty.

Captive bred specimens are probably a bit less assertive having never had to "work" for their food. Smaller species MIGHT be more easily intimidated by discus size. The L134 and L260 that I have are a bit shy and may simply lack the aggressiveness to feed off the slime coat.

If that changes, I will be happy to post an update.

[LKSDiscus]

My BNP are too busy making whoopi and babies to care about the Discus.