Royal Pleco

[demjor19]

hey guys i just picked up a nice little Royal pleco over the weekend. right now he is around 1.5 - 2 inches long. i'm still a little new to the pleco scene and if any of you have some good advice on Royals please feel free to post it. how big can i expect him to get and what is a rough estimate on their growth rate. i'll have some pics up later tonight.

thanks in advance for any advice,

 

[Cohazard]

Congrats on the pickup, royals are awesome plecs.

They grow slooooow. Mine grew from 4" to 7" in about 2 years, and they grow a lot larger than that.

They don't mix well with bichirs and I wouldn't mix them with catfish either because they will get aggressive as they get older and bully anything that comes near it's favorite driftwood hiding spot.

 

[demjor19]

Congrats on the pickup, royals are awesome plecs.

They grow slooooow. Mine grew from 4" to 7" in about 2 years, and they grow a lot larger than that.

They don't mix well with bichirs and I wouldn't mix them with catfish either because they will get aggressive as they get older and bully anything that comes near it's favorite driftwood hiding spot.

cool! thanks for the reply! are royals known to feed on the slime coating of other fish? i know some plecs will do this. at the moment he is in w/ another pleco (slightly larger), a few loaches, a small senegal bichir, and a baby giant gourami. no signs of aggression yet, but it's only been about 48 hours. i have a few small pieces of drift wood in there, so maybe it will keep things broken up.

 

[Cohazard]

cool! thanks for the reply! are royals known to feed on the slime coating of other fish? i know some plecs will do this. at the moment he is in w/ another pleco (slightly larger), a few loaches, a small senegal bichir, and a baby giant gourami. no signs of aggression yet, but it's only been about 48 hours. i have a few small pieces of drift wood in there, so maybe it will keep things broken up.

In extreme cases (where the pleco is chasing a fish to get at it's slime coat) the pleco is underfed/malnourished and the fish keeper is to blame more than the fish.

However, even though my 7" royal (I recently sold him because of this) was really fat on massivore and shrimp, he would suck on my small weeksii because it liked to hang out in the same spot under the driftwood as the plec, and the plec would rasp it's back to get the weeksii to go away.

 

[demjor19]

In extreme cases (where the pleco is chasing a fish to get at it's slime coat) the pleco is underfed/malnourished and the fish keeper is to blame more than the fish.

However, even though my 7" royal (I recently sold him because of this) was really fat on massivore and shrimp, he would suck on my small weeksii because it liked to hang out in the same spot under the driftwood as the plec, and the plec would rasp it's back to get the weeksii to go away.

i think this stands true for most pleco species. if they are hungry they will try to feed anywhere food is available. since they seem to grow so slowely i shouldnt have any problems for a while. do you know how big they normally get in aquaria?

 

[armac]

they feed on cellulose.................wood, have some in the tank

 

[demjor19]

they feed on cellulose.................wood, have some in the tank

they actually feed on the wood...not the algae on the wood?

 

[Cohazard]

they actually feed on the wood...not the algae on the wood?

They eat the wood and you'll find 'sawdust' in your filters, it suuucks lol

They do it to keep their teeth in good condition and it probably also has something to do with their digestive system.

I believe they get to 12-14"

 

[demjor19]

They eat the wood and you'll find 'sawdust' in your filters, it suuucks lol

They do it to keep their teeth in good condition and it probably also has something to do with their digestive system.

I believe they get to 12-14"

so that's why all of my plecos are always chewing/sucking on the driftwood? i thought there was some algae on it and they were eating that. that's pretty interesting.

 

[Cohazard]

so that's why all of my plecos are always chewing/sucking on the driftwood? i thought there was some algae on it and they were eating that. that's pretty interesting.

yup! Check out the sucking disc of several types of plecos and you'll see they are actuall highly specialized. Aufwuch's eaters don't have much in the way of teeth, while the wood eating plecs have four.

L14's have bigger teeth that remind me of a beavers teeth