rhino pleco

[wwildcats04]

I just bought a rhino pleco and the store said it was a lot like a regular pleco. I was just wondering if anybody knew anything about them

[Mike Rathnow]

wwildcats04
What you have is a great find. It's actually one of the harder of the pleco's to find. The Rhino Pleco "pterygoplichthys scrophus" or sometime called the chocolate pleco or the blue eyed pleco by some. It is a very peaceful pleco. It's in the family of loricariidae, and the sub family hypostominae. They grow to around 11" to 12" in length. And as far as I know have never been bred in captivity in the aquarium. They are consider a omnivore so they will eat some plant matter, plus black worms tubifex worms, and mine cherish froze beef heart. They do well with ph's anywhere from 6.0 to 7.0. Mine are also kept at a temp of around 78 to 80 degrees. Good luck with him. I'm sure you'll get years of enjoyment from him.

Mike

[wwildcats04]

I always try and feed it the algae pellets. But he never finds them, should I just give up with those or does it usually take a while. the clown loaches and severums usually eat them up right away. He seems content with the drift wood right now, but I only have a small amount of algae. The same thing happens with cucumber.