plecos in a 30G

dwarfgourami7

Steve the angelfish
Nov 13, 2006
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England! uk
I love Plecos, they are in my top 5 favourate fish. I have a 3-4 inch BN in my 30G atm but i would really like another one. Are there any kind of plecos i can have in there aswell? I was thinking gold nugget, sure 20Cm long in a 30G is a bit big but they dont swim as much as other fish. Also, will there be any aggresion issues? Theres plenty of places to retreat in case there is any aggression.
 
I would stick with just the one for a 30. You might push it with an albino BN.
 
Gold nuggets get alot bigger than you think. I've seen them in the 12" range around 30 cm. Some smaller plecos include clown pleco,zebra pleco,rubberlip pleco and my fave the bristlenose. Two can exist together in your 30 Gallon but theres has to be plenty of hiding spots as some plecos become territorial.
 
There are currently three different species of pleco called "gold nuggets". Some get larger than others. You will have territorial aggression without some creative decor to give everyone enough hiding places. With that said, gold nuggets are going to be more sensitive to poor water conditions, so you'd want to be very careful with them in a smaller tank like that.

While the primarily herbivore species are taking in a larger volume of roughage with their cleaning habits, so therefor putting out that much more waste, I would have to argue that the waste itself isn't as much bioload as it looks like. There wasn't a lot of digestible matter in the algae in the first place. The meat eating plecos tend to be very sedentary and really don't eat that much in relation to their body mass, even in tanks where the food is readily available as they want it.

I'm not saying you should run out and cram a bunch of big plecos in your 30 gallon, but you could easily add a couple Hypancistrus sp. L260, or LDA08, or L262, or L134, or many others. You have quite a few options still.

Barbie
 
Clown Pleco

I have two Clown Plecos in my 29g.They are only suppose to get three inches long,but I'm no expert.JeffM.
 
L-262
 
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