Goldfish And A Plec ?

[liam74]

hi there, just a quickie, talking to a bloke at work today bout fish and he reckons that he has a plec in with his goldfish. so my question is can this happen ? are plec's ok with goldfish ? if so i might consider getting a plec for my G/F tank, i like the zebra plec.

regards

liam

 

[Luke_e]

Probably not, as goldfish are coldwater, and plecs are tropical.
And they both produce high amounts of waste which would cause problems if its a small tank, plus the plec will grow large.

 

[liam74]

yeh i knew plec's were tropical, as i going to get one for my tropical tank. i was just wanting to know if they would go together with goldfish as this bloke reckons his does.

liam

 

[Luke_e]

I dont think it would be recomended, as i'm not sure how he has both of them housed as he either has it cold, or tropical temp and one or the other fish would suffer and inevitibly die, i recomend you tell him to move one or the other out and get another tank, i think its minimum on 20gallon for goldfish, and a very large tank for plecs.

 

[black angel]

A bristlenose plec can take the normal room temperature and get along with goldies. The ones to avoid are the common plecs because as they mature they need more protein in the diet and the slime coat is irresistable to them.
Give your bristlenose a piecs of bogwood to hide under.

 

[debiasir]

i have a Bristle nose plec in my goldy tank and they get along fine.

Probably not, as goldfish are coldwater, and plecs are tropical.
And they both produce high amounts of waste which would cause problems if its a small tank, plus the plec will grow large.

that is not totally correct the Zebra plec is quite small as plecs go around the 4 inch mark i believe.

 

[WILDER]

Well plecs can suck on the goldfish slime coat mine does now and then only for a second then jumps off, but i wouldn't add more than one baecause of this, corys are good with goldfish so i've been told.

 

[black angel]

corys are only good with goldies while they are small, but as they grow fast its not uncommon for them to hoover a cory up by mistake. Its the end of the road for the cory and a lot of stress for the owner trying to get said cory removed.

 

[liam74]

its quite interesting that certain tropicals can live with the goldy's. dont think i will introduce anything to my goldy tank as they seem very protective of there tank, once added 2 weather loaches and my 2 goldys kept chasing them and bullying them, so ended up re-homing the loaches. my goldy's live in tropical conditions anyway (tank currently running at 73 degrees) this is purely down to the fact that the house in warm even without the heating on, i know this is not ideal, but moving house soon and the location of were the tank is going to be placed will bring the temp down.

liam

 

[OohFeeshy]

that is not totally correct the Zebra plec is quite small as plecs go around the 4 inch mark i believe.

LOL, but the likelyhood of getting a zebra plec is, uh, zilch.

 

[Briarmoor]

My brother in law called me the other night over an ammonia problem. He had moved 5 goldfish and one plec into a 55g indoor tank from an outside pond. He had added the plec over the summer to help with algae then read that it wouldn't be able to stand the cold winter temps here. So he brought everything inside.

I told him how to deal with the ammonia, he is doing lots of PWC and I offered him floss from my cycled tanks. He's had everything indoors for 5 weeks now. Made the mistake of rinsing his sponge in chlorinated tap water so probably lengthened his time for cycling.

Anyway, just for the winter months, do you guys think the plec and goldfish will be okay? I told him the whole coldwater goldfish, tropical plec thing, and he'd read that and set the temp to 72 as middle ground. Will they all be okay at that for a few months? He did not mention the plec bothering the slime coats so far, but did say it had grown a great deal in the outdoor pond over the summer and is about 6 inches long already.

From my barest of experience, I can say plecs are very hard to catch. He admitted this one was! My mother also saw a plec turned loose in a stream near a park in her city. Poor guy won't survive the winter, but it brings up the subject of non-native species being introduced, I could see them taking hold in warmer climates such as Florida. Anyone hear of this being a problem? We can make it a separate post if this is hijacking the current one.

 

[black angel]

How big are the goldies he brought in? For this to work he will need to do 3 water changes a week if not more of around 30%- 50 % as i think they will be producing vast amounts of waste. Filtration must be really good as well to cope and should be at a minimum 10 x tank capacity.

 

[consp]

hi there, just a quickie, talking to a bloke at work today bout fish and he reckons that he has a plec in with his goldfish. so my question is can this happen ? are plec's ok with goldfish ? if so i might consider getting a plec for my G/F tank, i like the zebra plec.

The Hong Kong Plec (aka butterfly plec) will do fine in a coldwater tank... You'll often find the in the CW section rather than the Trop. Although they're not extremly hardy . Might be best to try and find the biggest possible specimin to add to your tank.

You goldy will ignore the plec as if he were part of the scenary... They don't see to care as long as they are stuck to the glass, decor or substrate.

If you just wanted something different you could go for snails (such as apple snails) or a weather loach.

Hope this helps

 

[Briarmoor]

How big are the goldies he brought in? For this to work he will need to do 3 water changes a week if not more of around 30%- 50 % as i think they will be producing vast amounts of waste. Filtration must be really good as well to cope and should be at a minimum 10 x tank capacity.

Being an overzealous type he is changing 50% of the water every day, so I think that part will be okay. Unfortunately, he is just running a Whisper 60 right now, but did buy a Penguin with a bio wheel. He just had't figured out how to put it all together when I talked to him, but may have by now.

I am not sure the size of the goldies, but they were just added during the summer, so hopefully not very big. He said so far, none of the fish seemed stressed and he was being careful not to overfeed. In this area, most people leave their comets, etc. outside all winter if their pond is deep enough, I think 30" and they do okay. His common plec would not, but I don't know what he'll do next year if he puts it out for the season, because eating algae all summer it will be huge by then. I guess someone could have a big formed pond in their house for a few months, then take it out, but what a pain.

 

[koimom]

hi there, just a quickie, talking to a bloke at work today bout fish and he reckons that he has a plec in with his goldfish. so my question is can this happen ? are plec's ok with goldfish ? if so i might consider getting a plec for my G/F tank, i like the zebra plec.

regards

liam

Hi Liam.
For what it's worth, we have an 85 gallon tank that has 2 very large plecostamus, 1 synodontis, 3 baby koi and 1 shubunkin. Before anyone has a heart attack, the koi and shubunkin will go into the outdoor pond when they've grown larger. I have yet to see the mild mannered plecs or syno ever once try to suck on the koi or goldfish. In fact, the plecs will even eat from my fingertips along with the koi, they're that tame. Since the tank is inside our house which has indoor heating/ac, the temp seems fine for everyone. We've got the tank way overfiltered with a skimmer to boot so the water quality is fine, just do occasional water changes as needed. Just my 2 cents worth...