For anyone who doubts how large a pleco can get...

[budrecki]

This morning I visited Blue Springs State Park, just north of Orlando, FL. There is an estuaries fed by a hot spring, so the water stays 72f pretty much year round. The manatees congregate here in winter because of the warm water. Much to my surprise this is what I saw... :dive2:

http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f58/budrecki/PICT0057.jpg

What appears to be a pleco.... One of the rangers said these fish "clean" the algae and barnacles off of the manatees. Hard to tell the exact size, but this manatee was within 2 feet of the pier. The pleco looked to be about 20-24" and VERY FAT. I'm begining to wonder if 180g will be enough for my little Rufus.

[MoparORnoCAR]

the new LFS down the street from me has three plecos, the smallest being about 18 inches, the largest looks to be at least 24....MASSIVE!


Cool pic, btw!

[Leopardess]

Very cool, thank you for sharing!

[Roan Art]

So, what's a pleco doing in brackish water? Probably someone released them from their tank, but everyone says they couldn't live in brackish water?
Looking at the size of that thing, I'd say they do quite well.

Roan

[kyle3]

anyone know what species that is- i've never seem that "breed" before-

could explain the brackish water thing

[Emg]

Blue Springs isn't brackish water........I've been there a few times myself. It runs into the St Johns river and it's very fresh water. There are NO fish that live near the mouth of the hole in the ground where the water comes up from...because there is no oxygen in the water until it runs a couple hundred feet or so.

It's a pretty cool place, the water is crystal clear and you can see EVERYTHING in there. I went snorkeling up it a couple of times. Incredibly large fish in there. It may feel warm in the winter...but 72 is pretty nippy when you go in the summer....lol..

[budrecki]

kyle3

Pterygoplichthys disjunctivus

http://www.floridafisheries.com/fishes/non-native.html#suckers
(half way down the page)

[Bitsy]

Ewww, it talks about edibility on that page. I couldn't imagine just frying up a pl*co for dinner :(

[budrecki]

In "the shell"? Skin and all? I know I'm partial, but Rufus is not/should not/will not be meal!

[tricksterpup]

Ewww, it talks about edibility on that page. I couldn't imagine just frying up a pl*co for dinner :(
Hey in SA they are a food fish same with Piranahs.

[Riso-chan]

So, those guys are native to FL? I've had a petstore owner tell me he saw one of them in the wild that looked to be over 3ft. They really are beautiful fish, I would've kept my pl*co if I'd had the room, but he was just too big for the 55g I had bought him, so I realized I should give him to people that could take care of him. An outdoor above ground pool would be a good idea as a habitat for a few of those guys, and the pool filter could be modified to facilitate the needs of fish. That would indeed be an enjoyable project for someone willing to do it. Not only tha, but could you imagine how happy the armored cats would be with all that room?~Angela

[graphicdesign_r]

That's most likely a native species of sucker. We have them up here in the rivers too, I've seen them up to 2" from bridges etc. the old ladies feed them bread where I fish for trout (bad I know, but the ladies enjoy it, and the fish are completely OK with it...).

I miss my pleco. I'm sure he's happier in the 120 gallon he moved to (he grew to 8.5" from tadpole sized and I only owned him a few months!)

[Roan Art]

Blue Springs isn't brackish water........I've been there a few times myself. It runs into the St Johns river and it's very fresh water. There are NO fish that live near the mouth of the hole in the ground where the water comes up from...because there is no oxygen in the water until it runs a couple hundred feet or so.Ah, well you can tell I've never been there :)

Ooo "cook in shell" yummy! NOT! :D

Roan

[svtcontour]

My pleco is about 14" right now but I think he's slowed down... Hopefully wont get much bigger.

[budrecki]

Don't count to it!

[djmodifyd]

yea..those things get huge!
my lfs has one thats about 18" long

[fIsHy13]

Ahhhhh! Scary!

[budrecki]

Their not scary. They give nice fishy kisses!!

[sumthin fishy]

:Angel: But fish only grow to the size of thier tank. I had a bad algae problem in my 1 gallon bowl, home to 3 goldfish. I bought 2 plecos to put in there, and they lasted a long time, about 2 years. they didnt get over 3 inches. :Angel:

:joke:

[budrecki]

:Angel: But fish only grow to the size of thier tank. I had a bad algae problem in my 1 gallon bowl, home to 3 goldfish. I bought 2 plecos to put in there, and they lasted a long time, about 2 years. they didnt get over 3 inches. :Angel:

:joke:

They probably didn't grow becuase they didn't get enough food! And they "lasted", they did not live a normal fish life.

[sumthin fishy]

Please note the jokeing smiley!! ;)

[abraham]

I had a trip a couple of years ago up the Amazon river deep into the jungle. We went fishing one day. We stayed in the river, but a couple of the crew from the boat went back into this overgrown spot with nets. Well they came back with about fifteen plecos! All of them HUGE! That night we had Arrowanna and paranha filets, and pleco soup! Oh man, I couldn't bring myself to try it. They had just cut those babies up into big hunks and cooked them, heads, fins, guts, everything. The crew were the only ones to eat the soup. It was like watching ravinous dogs. They would kind of suck the meat and junk from the skin/armor, even out of the heads. Man my skin is crawling just remembering it :eek:

But anyways, yeah, I've seen some biggies before!

Abraham

[budrecki]

:sad:

[patoloco]

Sometimes it's really hard to eat animals you've kept as pets. I remeber when I ate my first dog... :sick:

[abraham]

Sometimes it's really hard to eat animals you've kept as pets. I remeber when I ate my first dog... :sick:

uummm.... :dog: Have you really had dog?

Abraham

[budrecki]

Sometimes it's really hard to eat animals you've kept as pets. I remeber when I ate my first dog... :sick:

yummmmm

Patoloco, with some fava beans and a nice chianti......