how much time can i leave my aquarium without a common pleco. my aquarium's bottom is gravel.Everytime i bring 1 common pleco it dies in a couple of days or so. Is it that important to have one in the aquarium.

Paul, no offense but i cant understand a word your saying, take a deep breath and type it out again slowly and read it back to yourself and then repost it if its fine, i cant help if i cant understand


thanks Oddy :crazy:

Its ok oddball, he is new to fish keeping.

Paul, do you have a good filter and do you vacume the gravel every month or so?

How large do common plecos get?

Large....

Very Large.....

How quickly do they get there?

Pretty quickly.....

my common pleco is 13 inches. That will give you an idea of how big they get. Also if your plecos keep dying you might want to check the chemical levels of your water. Common plecos are very hardy fish, that means they they can tolerate quite the range of chemicals in the water. Mostly check you ph level, and your ammonia level. Hope this helps.

he is asking how long he can go without putting a pleco in his tank

my answer- forever. i don't have one single pleco in any of my tanks. my opinion is that they are not worth the hassle of cleaning all of their poop. and they shit a LOT.

i would only get plecos if they were ornamental or rare. commons are highly overrated... they don't even eat algae all that good (at least not good enough to constitute all of that poo!)

paul, i would just get myself an algae scrubber and wipe the inside of that tank with it once a week when you do your water change.

That doesnt matter.

Im sure he would have no trouble trading it in.

There is usually high demand for large plecos.

I think you just have a lazy common pleco LOL :laugh:

But I agree. Just use an algea scrubber and wipe the glass.

IMO plecos are not over rated though. I could not keep my tanks clean without them.

Hell if you really wanted an algae eater get some rubber nose blecos, they are shy but munch algae like its going out of fashion