Hello! Beginner here. advice/suggestions please

[OzzyTheOscar]

Plecos!!! Keep reading please!!

Hey thanks for reading guys. So names OzzyTheOscar because that's my Oscars name haha. This little monster is about 4 inches. Anyway I started this hobby with a 29 gal. Went and bought an oscar at Wal-Mart (I jumped into it rather quickly and had no idea you could ship a live fish in the mail) and he's been growing since. Recently just bought a 75g to make the fella happy. He loves it. I love it. Just decorated it with a medium driftwood piece with a large flat rock leaning on it creating a cave like place(not big enough for ozzy though). With with 6-8 pieces of 3-7 inch driftwood also(damn things are still floating if not for the rocks). To give you an idea on my tank, the temp is 79-80°f. Filter is a aquaclear 110. Sand bottom mixed with some river rocks I bought. ANYWAYS!! I LOVE PLECOS! The rhino pleco/chocolate pleco (I think rhino suits it more from the ones I've seen on aquabid) but others fascinate me too. I'm looking at getting two plecos sometime soon but before that I was wanting to learn a bit more like your suggestions on plecos and on products and anything else someone with more experience than me wants to share!

[OzzyTheOscar]

***the cave like place is actually big enough for ozzy I just can't see him down there but who knows****

[OzzyTheOscar]

Bump.

[pleconut]

Hi there welcome to planet catfish.

So you say your oscar is 4 inches- i assume that's total length, for me when i started with plecos i went for a common pleco. You certainly have space for at least one large pleco with the 75gal. But the oscar i know can become aggressive as he gets bigger, so if it were me i'd start by getting a substantially bigger pleco than he is right now, this way the oscar may come to know not to mess with it. In terms of getting 2 plecos, even they can be territorial between themselves and larger ones in particular, which is only what could be compatible with the oscar.

There are some nice large plecos available, not just the commons, whichever direction you take with plecos my top advice is - do as much reasearch as you can. In the top left corner of the page there is a feature called the CateLog- here you can find a great source of info on the Loricariidae, the group plecos come under, its a good starting point for finding plecos i scan through the L numbers often myself. Take a look, i've not had first hand experience with the rhino/chocolate pleco to comment or with oscars but i know both can be aggressive. But one i'm looking into is the sunshine pleco - scobiancistrus aureatus- the L no is L014 it grows to around 12 inches.

In terms of keeping an oscar and a large pleco you'd need a more than adequate filtration system to cope with the bio-load of both.

This is the kind of sized pleco, or even bigger that you need to look for that possibly could go with an oscar, but again i'd err on the cautious side, as both oscars and plecos, can become territorial to the point of aggression.

[OzzyTheOscar]

Yeah I'm looking at another filter too,suggestions? And maybe one larger pleco because my oscar is more 5 inches. The way I'm looking at it is to make one side for oscar and the other side for a larger pleco, or 2 if a certain species that doesn't grow to large but then again are territorial so better off getting one large? I'm setting the tank to have a river look with many hiding spots using the least amount of space possible so oscar can swim. And just curious on the whole L number system, I'm sure it represents the species but what exactly? Is size a factor in that?

[OzzyTheOscar]

I think if the oscar and 1(2) pleco look in my tank would look great. I'll upload pictures when I've completely set it the way I want. They're both river fish I believe so hopefully it'll work

[pleconut]

No the Lno system is not size related . It was a numbering system put in place to identify different types of plecos according mainly to the location caught. These Lnos were assigned to a species of pleco until it was given a scientific name, some have scientific names others are still waiting identification. However the L numbering system stuck and people still use the numbers in reference to a pleco for identification, even if it now has a scientific name. Im sure that others can explain it beter than me. In terms of dividing the tank, if this is what you mean, the oscar will need lots of space.

[Marine590622]

I have two oscars in a 75 with a number of other cichlids, south american as well as a couple of lone victorians, and a couple of africans. I keep the bottom of the tank littered with driftwood old pottery stones etc. I have a breeding coloney of ancistrus in the tank at the moment. The only thing is I have had to develope a way to get some of the food down into the structure on the bottom as the cichlids don't let much food fall to the floor. A piece of pvc serves to protect the food as it sinks to the bottom.

That tank is viewable over my shoulder in this picture

http://www.planetcatfish.com/forum/down ... &mode=view

[Marine590622]

Yeah I'm looking at another filter too,suggestions? ...

In the upper right of the page you will see a banner pop up for swiss tropicals. I would recommend one of their tower filters, or a matten filter.