Baby Albino Pleco

This week I was in the right place at the right time. I visited my friendly neighborhood pet shop, Carroll's Pets, and they told me they had received a shipment of large plecostomus just a few days earlier. While scooping them out of the bag to add them to their tanks, Shelli discovered a tiny baby albino pleco. It is not much larger than my fingernail.

Most of my tanks contain angelfish, which would make a quick meal out of the little fella. So I brought him home to my neon tetra tank, where the largest residents are corydoras, who get along with everybody. There are plenty of places for the little guy to hide out - in a castle, in a grassy "pod", and amongst plants.

This morning, I found him bright and early eating the algae off the side of the tank.

I think I'll name him Steven Tylerfish. Mick Jaggerfish is my largest pleco.

We don't know what variety of pleco Steven is. He might remain small or he could be 15 inches or larger. If he outgrows the neon tank, I can always introduce him to one of my larger angelfish tanks, which would accommodate a pleco of almost any size.

Large Pleco

I don't normally see the largest pleco in my community tank because he generally comes out at night and is tucked inside a tree trunk during the day.

But this morning I found Mick Jaggerfish hanging on the side glass, so I snapped these photographs.

In this one above, you can see his reflection in the glass. He is approximately 15 inches long.

And in the second photograph, it was taken from outside the tank looking in. He gets along very well with all the other fish, and helps to keep the algae from forming on the glass.





Butterfly Pleco

Here is a rare picture of my butterfly pleco, which lives in a community tank with four freshwater angelfish, some tetra and corydoras.

I've had this pleco since he was about an inch long. He is now at his maximum length, around 6 inches. The butterfly pleco can grow to 5 to 7 inches in length. They're very shy creatures and will often hide during the day and only come out at night when the other fish are sleeping and the tank is dark. Normally having the light on in the tank is enough to send him under a rock or in a cave. He may be under the impression that I can't see him, since this picture found him at the back of the tank behind some grass and rocks.

The butterfly pleco, like most plecos, are very peaceful fish. Though some can grow quite long - I have a pleco in another tank that is around 15 inches long - they do not bother other fish. They eat algae off the sides of the tank and decorations and tend to be bottom feeders. I add a Pleco Block to the tank each week, which provides plankton and wood, necessary for their digestion.

I do not have plecos in my breeding tanks, however, only in the community tanks. They will eat the eggs and newborn fry of other fish.

I Can't See the Fish for the Algae!

Algae grows naturally in aquariums. In small doses, it is beneficial to fish. But it can coat the inside of the glass and grow on every object, large and small, quickly creating an unsightly and embarrassing centerpiece.

What's a fish keeper to do?

Watch where you place your tank. Do not place it near windows or in direct sunlight. The more light the tank gets, the greater the chances of algae growing out of control.

Monitor the hours you keep the tank lights on. Try for no more than 8 hours a day. If you enjoy the lights on the aquarium (and who doesn't) take stock of when you are actually around to enjoy it. I have mine on for about three hours in the morning and about five hours in the evening.

Wash off the algae. I have two sets of decorations. When one set gets more algae than I'd prefer to have (and my tolerance for algae is pretty low) I remove those and put in the second set. And how do I clean the algae off the first set? It's easy. The best cleaner for fish tanks is: baking soda. Yep, that's right. I rinse off the decoration, then I place it in a shallow pan and sprinkle baking soda all over it. You can rinse it off after a few hours or a few days, depending on the severity of the problem. If you fail to rinse all of it off, it will not harm the fish - but it will drop the Ph. So you'll want to rinse it as thoroughly as you can. Using a toothbrush that you never used before is helpful for brushing off any excess algae.

Stay away from fast-acting algae removal products. They work by eliminating the elements in the water that algae feeds on. But it can zap so much of the minerals needed for the fish to live that they will actually suffocate. I watched an entire tank suffer due to one of these products and it is heart-wrenching.

Clean the glass yourself. I've used a number of products to clean the inside glass and the best I've found is a simple sponge (AKA algae pad) on a long handle.

There are also magnetic sponges sold that are very helpful when your fish don't like your hands in their water - like the parents of the baby fish they are protecting.

Hire someone to clean your glass. I like plecos. Because my angelfish get so large, I prefer to have one pleco in each tank. They can grow to five inches long (the bushynose pleco) to more than 21 inches in length so check with your pet store to find out how large your pleco will get when it is fully mature. They love algae and will spend most of the night time hours scouring your tank for it.

Do not get ottos for an angelfish tank. They are excellent at cleaning algae and I use them in my guppy and neon tetra tanks because they are a similar size. But they are so small that angelfish think of them as food. And since ottos can be very bony, they can injure the mouths of the angels who taste them.

The pleco in the picture at right will grow to 15 inches in length. But I'll never put one in a tank of breeding angels because, although plecos are primarily vegetarian, the angelfish parents will assume they're out to eat their young. And they might accidentally suck some in with those huge lips. This pleco's name is Mick Jaggarfish.