First and foremost, this site has been a wealth of info for me! I'm pretty much what you'd call a novice 'fisher'...I never knew that plecostomus liked cucumbers until I found his site!

My Plec's name is Brutus...he had been living in a cramped 10 gal tank with a Field Day-won goldfish. Yes, I too fell into the pleco-goldfish trap. The goldfish, "Jaws" grew to almost 8" long, but Brutus stayed smaller. Well, Jaws has since died, and Brutus was the sole scaly friend for me. The 10 gal seemed OK for a while, but having seen the pics of Pleco's over a foot long, I knew Brutus had out-grown his lil 10 gal tank!

So, I splurged and bought a 40 gal tank this week. I let the water get to the same temp as his old tank, and introduced him to his new home. He absolutely LOVES IT! I have never seen him so playful, so vibrant as I have with him in his bigger home!

OK...the intro got a bit long...my question is - Brutus seems to have a severely tapered body. His head is @ 2 inches wide, but his tailsection seems really skinny - about 1/8". I just recently introduced cucumbers into his diet, and I'm beginning to think he hasn't had a good enough diet before. I think I might have to see how he responds to a richer diet before I hit the panic button, but is this just normal for pleco's? I'd post a pic of him here if I could, but...anyways...

Great site, and keep up the fine work!

Frank

I'm glad Brutus is having fun is his new big home! Is that his photo in your avatar? Plecos do become less wider further back on their bodies but it sounds like Brutus may be a bit underfed unless he's a different species (not a regular old pleco). Now that you'd feeding cucumbers, that along with sinking algae wafers should plump him up.

Frank welcome to the forum. Plecos are cool fish...they look almost prehistoric to me. I've never been w/o one. Right now I have a 5 inch common in w/my mated pair of bluie paradise fish in a 10-gallon. They get along very well as long as the paradise stay out of his way. His name is Gus & he's actually hubby's fish. I know he'll outgrow the tank eventually but he's been in it for a couple years & seems very content.

A small word of advice from my own experience regarding plecos. Give zucchini a shot instead of cucumbers. I used to give my original pleco cucumbers, but there would always be seeds floating around in the tank in the morning. My pleco seemed to like the zucchini better anyway, so you might want to give it a try.

Cool, thanks all for your replies! B)

Yes, that's him in my avatar, Robyn. I think Im going to try to post pics of him on my Verizon site...I think they allow some space. And he seems to be more diurnal than what most ppl have been posting. It might be because I used to run the lights sporadically, but I'm buying a timer so I can just set it & forget it. I use the Waverly wafers for him, too - he seems to love them!

Matt - I'll give the squash a shot too. I did notice the seeds myself, but I began to scoop out the centers as Robyn suggested & haven't had as big a prob with that. One thing I did notice is that one night I left a cucumber in the tank, and the water got really cloudy. I won't do that again!

PB - I was thinking the same thing about Brutus! He's like a `lil Coelacanth in my tank! I touched his side when I moved him into his bigger home, and it felt like sandpaper! I took a bit of a chance on getting 'finned' with bare hands, but NOTHING could be worse than when I caught a bullhead a few years ago & got spined by it! OWCH!

I'm just going to keep on feeding him the good stuff, and hope for the best! I'm hoping to have a foot long buddy in no time!

Thanks again all!

UPDATE:Well, Verizon's 'site builder' is waaaaayyyyy too involved, so I uploaded pics of Brutus to my other hobby's website.

Brutus 1
Brutus 2
Brutus 3

Brutus looks to a be a common sort of pleco, maybe another Liposarcus species.

Yeah, I use a grapefruit spoon to remove the cucumber seeds otherwise they'd be all over. My Plecy doesn't really like green zucchini but if yours does, great! Variety is good. Cucumber in the water long term may make it cloudy. It provides the growth of various bacteria and infusuria (paramecium and such). In an established tank with a functioning biological filter, it shouldn't go cloudy very often. I have cucumber in there all the time. I change it every morning. My water goes cloudy one or two days a month. I do weekly 50% water changes.

we give zuchinni to the aquariums every other day, well the aquariums that have fish that eat the zuchinni and on the other days, the goldfish tanks get oranges

Parameciums....yeech! I remember looking at those weird things in pond water in HS biology...don't want any of them critters in Brutus' home! I almost kicked myself tonight...I forgot to get a fresh cuke for him! Well, I'm going to get up early tomorrow (today) & get a few. Gave him a Waverly wafer to tide him over tonight.

Did the pic links work, Robyn? Seemed to for me...

I was kinda wondering about species type myself...I did count his dorsal spines, and he has 13...does that help? He's such a cool fish...I never really knew that plecs were a member of the catfish family until I found this site, too!

Thanks all for the advise/help/comments! B)

Frank

I saw your photos, hence my comment that he looks similar to mine.

Paramecium can't be seen by the naked eye. They won't harm Brutus.

With 13 rays, he's probably in one of these genuses:
Liposarcus, Pterygoplichthys, or Glyptogolipthychs

Go to http://www.planetcatfish.com/ to see photos of most of the catfish including hundreds of plecos so you can see how there are so many "common" plecos that all look the same to most of us!

The pattern on him is beautiful!!!!