Yeah I know why its in place for sellers and collectors and I think its nice for someone well versed in pleco, but for a beginner like me I get pretty confused. I remember two notable instances where the L-number naming scheme made for a pretty interesting interaction. 1. When I asked a storekeeper pleco to recommend me a pleco for my tank size and he goes on with number after numbers and I was there like hmmmm since when fish got numbers in their names? (at that point I have only ever bought common plecos for ponds). 2. I saw a beautiful black pleco online and was trying to find out what species it was and since it doesn't have any distinct marking I just went to Wikipedia and starts googling all the numbers until I found the right one haha. Well I'm sure its only problems for a minority but I feel that an extra category like base colour-L- number would make it much easier.
Unpopular Opinions - Plecos
- Thread starter xenacanth9
- Start date
You should play around on planet catfish. You can specify genus and use a drop down menu look at the different species within. Even the Ls and LDAs, it will give you size, temps, locales. Great resource for catfish and plecos.
It’s very simple to understand a pleco has a number in addition to name.
If the lfs guy has listed plecos by name like gold nugget, false zebra, butterfly, leopard frog you would have been just as confused bc you don’t know the plecos. That’s where the responsibility falls onto the fish keeper to go do research and see which fish are suitable for our tanks.
There’s another great site called https://www.loricariidae.info/species
it’s picture based so you just scroll through and select the one that you like and or seen else where and it gives you all the information including l number
It’s very simple to understand a pleco has a number in addition to name.
If the lfs guy has listed plecos by name like gold nugget, false zebra, butterfly, leopard frog you would have been just as confused bc you don’t know the plecos. That’s where the responsibility falls onto the fish keeper to go do research and see which fish are suitable for our tanks.
There’s another great site called https://www.loricariidae.info/species
it’s picture based so you just scroll through and select the one that you like and or seen else where and it gives you all the information including l number
Well this makes it a lot easier thanks for the info. Gotta say though gold nugget, false zebra, butterfly, leopard frog does sound more beginner friendly. Let me guess gold nugget is a pleco with gold speks on it, false zebra are plecos with zebra stripes but opposite direction from an actual zebra, butterfly are plecos with fins that look like butterfly wings and leopard frog have leopard pattern with a frog face. tell me if I'm even close?
I don’t know all of them, but leopard frog pleco gets its name from its pattern, which is similar to that of the Leopard frog (Rana pipiens):
Lol I personally don’t see the resemblance though….
On theory yes a name initially sounds easier but for gold nugget there’s larger spots, small spots, seams, no seams and having the number will get you your correct pleco that you like for its looks. Even when you use the common name your still left wondering what it looks like and you go Google it and then you become confused bc of the numbers. Where as if you started with the number you’d be less confused bc you would only get Google hits for that pleco.
even when I listed some of the l numbers I went to look them up on Google to ensure I had the correct numbers ?
your correct for the most part, the butterfly pleco name doesn’t resonate with me as it’s a black and yellow stripped pleco with no more butterfly fins than any other pleco haha
the L264 sultan pleco is another one that the common name doesn’t do anything for me either….what does a sultan look like haha
basically is a grey pleco with large black spots and whit fin tips as a juvie, there’s a look alike that is grey with smaller spots that is L160 spiny monster. The two get confused sometimes
I think the fish naming gods were smoking something when they were dishing out names for all of the fish and ran out of cool names once they started with freshwater fish after being done with the saltwater ones lol.
