Can I keep two pleco’s in the same tank?

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biofish

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Honestly I have absolutely no need to do it, but I’m curious. I have two candy stripped (or clown. When I bought them they were called candy stripped but they look an awful lot like clowns) plecos. One in a 20 gallon and another in a 29. I was looking online but couldn’t find a definite yes or no for a candy stripped. I don’t know their genders; someone posted pictures on another post to help me identify them but I haven’t really been able to see them enough to really tell 😂
 
Don’t . What ever anyone says right now makes no difference iv had two plecos fight to the death today n it’s not a nice fight
 
Regardless of what info you receive, don’t do it . I will bet my house off what iv saw today , others will say yep go for it ,, but they have never saw a pleco fight to the death , I have , don’t do it
 
Got it! Yeah I honestly have absolutely no need to put them together nor did I really want to. I was curious since I couldn’t find a simple yes or no. Thank you though for providing one ❤️

Good to know in case some sort of emergency happens and the idea of putting them together raises up
 
Regardless of what info you receive, don’t do it . I will bet my house off what iv saw today , others will say yep go for it ,, but they have never saw a pleco fight to the death , I have , don’t do it
What species?
 
What species?
Green phantom and sail fin , common , believe it or not iv have watched a fight to the death and the aggressor was the loser , no lie , I’d always say yep mix pelcos no issue but I was wrong , 7 inch common vs a 7 inch green phantom in a 5ft 500l was a disaster .... I know many people have kept plecos together with great success but what after iv saw today I will never keep plecos together ever again
 
Not true you x=cabbot keep more than one pleco in a tank.

I have been spawning plecos now since about 2003. Today I have about 400-500 plecos and they are in roughly 18 tanks, But I recently shipped out about 80 of them. I had 100 L2173 in a 125 gal. I heep breeding groups of 10-15 fish in a 33L and then they spawn and I get more plecos.

I breed all Hypancistrus from the Rio Xingu now but I have worked with other species in the past. I always do species tanks. They are loaded with caves and a ton of rock and wood.

However, when one tried to mix different pleco species, this may or may not be a problem depending on the species and the tank involved as well as the scaping inside that tank.

I just sold my 11 breeder group which were spawned from TR parents. Along whith them went 113 assorted offspring from that tank. i got the 11 breeders in Earl December of 2015. They came in as 14, but when I got my wild caught groupt of 10, I sold 4 of the 14. I soled those same 11 fish last month. there were also another 75 or so offspring from them in the tank.

The fewest number of plecos I have in any tank today is 4 zebras in a 20L, another 7 huge adult zebras in another 20L and 2 x 6 173 and 1 x 7 in smaller spaces. All are for sale. However, I have many more tanks with 20-40 plecos in them.

I have been doing this nw for close to 20 years. I started with TR strains of bristlenose. They had no problem being on larger populations in the same tank.

Now for the kicker. Ihave this many pelcos because they pay for my hobby costs and the insane prices I have to pay to acquire them. They sell for at least $50 for the cheapest/smalles and as proven breeder tehy will run #300 to about $700. If these were regularly killing each other I would have to be crazy to house them in numbers.

That said, I am sure mixing certain species under specific circumstance can and does sometimes lead to a fight to the death. It would depend upon how each fish perceived the other. But one cannot say that it isn't safe to house any 2 plecos together because it simply is not the case.


p.s. Before I began breeding Hypans I kept a "Yipes Stripes" pleco tank: zebra, L66, L134 (now P. compta) and L333. I did lose 3 of the 5 zebras that went in over time. I never lost any of the others. I think the zebras being the smallest of the species may not have been able to compete for food. I also did not have an adequate number or size of caves either.
 
Not true you x=cabbot keep more than one pleco in a tank.

I have been spawning plecos now since about 2003. Today I have about 400-500 plecos and they are in roughly 18 tanks, But I recently shipped out about 80 of them. I had 100 L2173 in a 125 gal. I heep breeding groups of 10-15 fish in a 33L and then they spawn and I get more plecos.


The fewest number of plecos I have in any tank today is 4 zebras in a 20L, another 7 huge adult zebras in another 20L and 2 x 6 173 and 1 x 7 in smaller spaces. All are for sale. However, I have many more tanks with 20-40 plecos in them.

These are typos, surely? 20L is about 5 US gallons!
 
The bigger the tank the better. A 20g isn't really big enough for two plecos, but put them in a 50g they should be fine together.
 
Sometimes it may work, and sometimes it doesn't. Even in a "large" aquarium, they may still fight and show their territorial behaviors. I used to keep two species together in a 75-gallon. One of the plecos was an L015 (Peckoltia vittata) and the other was an L100 (Ancistrus sp.). Both species co-existed peacefully for the first few months, until one day, the Ancistrus decided to be the boss of the tank and started to harass the Peckoltia to the point that I have to remove the Ancistrus.
 
These are typos, surely? 20L is about 5 US gallons!
I'm pretty sure the poster meant 20 gallons long. Seeing that the poster lives in the US, it's safe to assume that a 20L meant 20 gallons long and not 20 liters. I have not met any US aquarists who used the metric system, liters, to determine how much water an aquarium can hold.
 
I put a supposed male and female albino bristle nose in the same 55 gallon tank and the only reason it wasn't death was I saw the fight and split them up. My first BN, I had 2 males.
 
I'm sorry for this comment, but I still don't see Bristle nose catfish as being pleco's. Plecostomus's are something entirely different.
 

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