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Hello, this pleco is 2 years old. very round and healthy.
It was given to me for free along with a bristlenose pleco.
The owner thought it was also a bristlenose but I suspect otherwise.

I would like to know the ID so I can put it in the correct aquarium surroundings.

Ignore my Aplocheilus panchax panchax, the dominant male likes to camera hog.

Thanks

This is a fish out of the group. Nice little wood eating Loricarid ;)

Thanks Jac, quite a few pictures look nothing like mine but some of them look exactly like him.
I guess there must be a wide variation within the species.

I would assume with the gut that I have a female?

I'm tentative about the gender.

This fish has conspicuous odontodes on the posterior body walls, which indicates male. But I am confused by the genital area, which I would have said was female.

The fattened body is not definitive. I've had some really fat males. LOL

Since the photo of the underbelly is taken with the body kind of folded, I'm not going to trust my impression of the genital area, so I'll stick with male.

Cheers, Eric

Awesome, thank you so much for the ID and sex.
I was thinking of picking up some more of these guys.
hes currently in a 20g with a few plants and moss with 6 neon tetras and 4 wag platys, he has plenty of wood to munch on.

I agreee with it being male. Better keep him on a wood only diet for some weeks, This guy is seriously fat

Yeah the Aquarium he came from had an algae bloom and was not doing so well. The owner, decided to take the tank down and I got some free fish. A really large female bristlenose (no bristles on nose) and this guy.

No idea what he had been eating but hes a fat little guy.
Whats a good number of individuals to keep and how likely are they to breed?

Number depends on your tanksize

Group of 3-5 should be a good starting point.

But be warned, a horde of these might bring your filtration to it's knees. They eat wood and poop saw dust

I did not manage to get mine to breed. Maybe I did something wrong, no idea. Others had more success. Eric will surely be able to give you some hints there. You might want to check out his thread here: viewtopic.php?t=41320

Hi Reteos,

You say he's currently in a 20gal tank. Is that a 20gal long or a 20gal high? I recently sold off a breeding colony of 7 adults but I'm still raising 30 or so juvies.

The breeding colony was in a 15gal species-only tank, which has the same base dimensions as a 20gal high.

My group didn't breed for more than a year, but once they started, they never stopped (except over winter, when I pulled out their heater) until I sold them.

Good luck, Eric