When I was just getting into keeping fish I had no clue as to what I was doing, so I made all the usual mistakes. After awhile I noticed that algae was growing on the glass and on everything else. I went to a pet store to see what they had, I looked for some chemical that would kill the algae. While I was looking a clerk came up to me and asked if he could help me, I told him what the problem was and he says all I need is an algae eater. He takes me over to show me an algae eater. I look in the tank and there is this fish that look like it can kick ass, not eat algae. He tells me the fish is called a plecostomus or for short a pleco, well I thought this fish was cool so I bought it and put it in a 10 gallon tank. He was around 3" long and I thought he was great till he started getting bigger and made a mess of my tank. Unfortunately he died, most likely due to my ignorance and the lack of space that he needed to have a healthy live. I now know that the common plecostomus will get very large with the common variety getting to be almost 18 inches (46 cm) and will out grow most aquariums under 55 gallons. There are varieties that don't get as large, such as the Bristlenose Plecostomus which reaches about 5 inches in size as adults. Plecos are interesting fish, but they are not suitable for many aquariums. If you are going to get a fish to eat algae I would either go with an Otocinclius, aka "Otto" catfish, or a Siamese algae eater. Ottos stay pretty small in size: 2"+. Siamese algae eaters get a bit bigger than that: around 4".

Good stuff....I think a lot of people have made the same mistake you have. I rescued one that was about 8in in a 10g a friend of mine had. I still have him in my 125g. I would really like to get rid of it soon.

I never understood why LFS dont tell people how big the fish really get.

There are some fish store employees that try, but when your working with printed info that's completely wrong, I'm sure it's an uphill battle.

Like while technically petsmart is correct that pacus get 8"+, they don't seem to have a good grasp on just how huge that + is. I guess most people wouldn't buy 'em if they knew it ended up at almost 2 feet.

I manage to find homes for gigantic plecos all the time, even tho they can kick some ass if they want to, they're seen as being gentile algae eaters, so they go to homes pretty quick.

i love plecos, they glide through the tank, kick some ass, suck some gravel and chill like flint. oh what i would do for the life of the plecos

Mostlycichlids wrote:

Good stuff....I think a lot of people have made the same mistake you have. I rescued one that was about 8in in a 10g a friend of mine had. I still have him in my 125g. I would really like to get rid of it soon.

If you still have the pleco and want to get rid of him pm me,.

Big Severum Fan wrote:

Mostlycichlids wrote:

Good stuff....I think a lot of people have made the same mistake you have. I rescued one that was about 8in in a 10g a friend of mine had. I still have him in my 125g. I would really like to get rid of it soon.

If you still have the pleco and want to get rid of him pm me,.

Only if you have a pond for them, I want them to have a good home for life!

Mostlycichlids wrote:

Big Severum Fan wrote:

Mostlycichlids wrote:

Good stuff....I think a lot of people have made the same mistake you have. I rescued one that was about 8in in a 10g a friend of mine had. I still have him in my 125g. I would really like to get rid of it soon.

If you still have the pleco and want to get rid of him pm me,.

Only if you have a pond for them, I want them to have a good home for life!

Yeah I am setting up a pond for the winter time for my koi and would love to house a pleco.

Big Severum Fan wrote:

If you still have the pleco and want to get rid of him pm me,.

I think you should read the post again, he died.

Even if I did have him still, I live in Canada, so I would have to find him a home here. I put this post here, so that newbies may read it and avoid the same mistake. This was a mistake I made years ago.

Celticwraith wrote:

Big Severum Fan wrote:

If you still have the pleco and want to get rid of him pm me,.

I think you should read the post again, he died.

Even if I did have him still, I live in Canada, so I would have to find him a home here. I put this post here, so that newbies may read it and avoid the same mistake. This was a mistake I made years ago.

No I was talking to mostlycichlids not you...
[quote]Big Severum Fan wrote:
Mostlycichlids wrote:
Good stuff....I think a lot of people have made the same mistake you have. I rescued one that was about 8in in a 10g a friend of mine had. I still have him in my 125g. I would really like to get rid of it soon.

If you still have the pleco and want to get rid of him pm me,.

Only if you have a pond for them, I want them to have a good home for life!