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A friend of mine is looking for a good pleco for his 40breeder. He likes the look of commons, but doubts he'll have enough tank when it outgrows his 40. Locally there isn't much choice. Rubber nose, bushy nose, clown, common, albino sailfin, and marble horned pleco.

I can't find any info on the marble horned pleco. . . anyone know its scientific name?

Would make sense, considering that there are albino sailfins in the same tank. . .

Any other possibilities?

is it maybe the rhino pl*co, I've always thought those were very cute. they have horns and are mottled?

Bushy Nose are much better suited for a 40 gal.
These other Plecos are giants best kept in tanks of 125 gals an up with large fish.

from the sound of it, it is almost guaranteed that it is a member of the pterygoplichtys. More likely to be the rhino, due to the somewhat marbled appearance.

And yes of the list you gave there, the BN, clown, possibly rubber can go into a 40 gal. But i am personally a fan of the BN, since there are a few colour variants and longfinned (keep 5 calico BN myself). Another beautiful pleco that you might be able to find is the L144, its similar looking to an albino BN, but it has blue/black eyed instead of the red in albinism.

Hitch wrote:Another beautiful pleco that you might be able to find is the L144, its similar looking to an albino BN, but it has blue/black eyed instead of the red in albinism.

Technically, it would be highly likely to be "L144-lookalike", as the genuine L144 is not generally available (particularly not in North America), and there are commercial breeders breeding a L144-lookalike from . Not that it REALLY matters, but they are different spceies.

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Mats

I agree with Mat. Many are offering albino common Ancistrus as L144 in the USA.

Actually, what I meant was amelanistic form of the common, which looks very similar (as in indistinguishable) to genuine , but is "made" from captive bred stock of the common fish.

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Mats

MatsP wrote:Actually, what I meant was amelanistic form of the common, which looks very similar (as in indistinguishable) to genuine

Ancistrus sp(L144)

, but is "made" from captive bred stock of the common fish.

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Mats

wow, def didnt know that there were actually a amelanistic version of the common BN. Interesting. Are there any ways to ensure you have the genuine L144?

My understanding is that L144 stems from a single wild-caught amelanistic ancistrus male which was crossed and back-crossed with common bristlenoses - so it seems pointless to me to separate it from amelanistic commons, as that is what it is.

I do not KNOW the history, but the way it was explained to me is that the single male came in a shipment from Paraguay with several other fish of normal colour, and these were selectively bred for two generations to fix the amelanistic trait.

It is of course possible that this is untrue and that the females involved were actually the common variety, in which case there is indeed no difference.

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Mats