# Please confirm my Plecos' Sex ...



## CyberBob (Jul 22, 2011)

I have 5 Plecos ...
Baby Albino Bristlenose Pleco. Just a little over 1" ... Too young to sex.








Living with betta for the last month.

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Baby Clown Pleco. Just under 2" ... Too small to sex?
<always hiding, no pictures yet>
Lived alone in snail tank for about a month, now living with big bull in puffers tank for the last month.

Big Bull Albino BristleNose Pleco. 3.75" - 4" ... 95% sure is a male.








Lived alone in 40g for 4 months, then lived with what I believe to be my other male for about a month until I had to move the lil guy into puffer tank because he kept head butting the lil guy. Lived alone in the 40g for another month and now he lives with the puffers for the last month.

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Large Albino BristleNose Pleco. 3" ... 75% sure is a male.








Lived alone in 10g for 3 months, then lived a month with the big guy in the 40g, then lived alone with Puffers for about 2 months, now living with a female (I hope) in the comuunity for the last month.

Medium Albino BristleNose Pleco. 2.5" ... 60% sure is a female.








Lived alone in 10g betta tank for 4 months, now living with my (I think) docile male in the community tank for the last month. He keeps gently pushing her into a cave and then pokes his head out until it's feeding time.

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So, I'm pretty sure I have them all sexed correctly. But I'm sure there are some folks out there that know the BristleNose better then I do. I've only been keeping them for about 7 months or so.

My medium male lived with my big male for about a month in the community tank. The big guy started headbutting him all the time, so the lil guy was moved with the puffers until I moved the female into the community tank a month ago, then he moved back with the female and the bug bull went in with the puffers.

The small female grew up alone in the betta tank. she was purchased when the medium guy was moved into the community tank with the big guy. Now she seems happy with the smaller guy.

The big guy was my 1st bristlenose. I bought him on Jan 3rd, my b-day. He was bought for the community tank, which was my birthday gift.

My clown is always hiding I guess. I thought him dead for a while there. I never saw him for a couple weeks. Then when I was re-arranging the plants, he shows up out of nowhere this last weekend.

Any advice for my lil plecos? Think I made a wrong move? I feed them all cucumbers or zuchini every 3 days. I feed them pleco waffers every night.

Feel free to look over all my tanks in my signature and let me know what you think. I know the community is overstocked, but I have it under control. But, feel free to share anything that's on your mind 

Thanks,
Bob









Left to Right:
29g Puffer Tank / 10g Snail Tank / 38g Community Tank
Yes I know, I need to clean my room a bit hehe


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## AquariumTech (Oct 12, 2010)

Ones with the 2 with the full on bushy noses are males for sure. The bottom one is a female, and the top one, is most likely a female too.


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## CyberBob (Jul 22, 2011)

AquariumTech said:


> Ones with the 2 with the full on bushy noses are males for sure. The bottom one is a female, and the top one, is most likely a female too.


I definetly think the big guy is a male. But, when I compare him to the smaller male (only about one month younger) there is definetly a difference. The big guy has what looks like horns growing out of his head. The smaller one only has the mustache. I read that sometimes when females are kept alone they can develop bristles too. I'm wondering if this could be a female with bristles and perhaps the big guy wasn't trying to fight, but rather mate. Also, the big guy has a very wide head compared to all the others. The small female has no wiskers at all and is only about 1\4" smaller then the smaller male. The baby ... well ... we'll just have to wait and see, none of them had bristles when they were that young, except the bull which had small bristles even as a baby.

Any ideas how I might be able to get my clown to be more social? Also, think I should be concerned about a baby clown with the big bull bristlenose? I can move the clown back to the snail tank if there is any danger for him. I'm just worried about ammonia levels for the lil guy having all those snails. I easily have about 5000 snails in that tank at the moment. The water is crystal clear and the ammonia levels stay pretty low. I add prime every weekend and check the levels. Or I could put him with the other baby in the betta tank, but that would have to be temporary.


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## CyberBob (Jul 22, 2011)

LOL as if to say "Oh Yeah? I'll show you I'm a man!" This morning the small male suddenly has a horn growing out of his head. I swear it wasn't there yesterday when I took the pictures.


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## CyberBob (Jul 22, 2011)

Ok, I re-arranged my fish today to try and spread out the bioload a bit.
I also returned 5 of the dwarf puffers and got 2 figure 8 puffers instead. I love the dwarfs, but they were always hiding and when I appraoched they would always run. They aren't usually this timid. I gave them 3 months to come out of their shyness, but in the end they just weren't happy. So, I returned them to be sold to a specific customer at the LFS. I know the guy and he will be putting them in an already cycled 55g species tank. They should be very happy there with his existing 5. He had a bad male to female ratio, where I only had one male, which I kept. Now he has a 2 to 1 ratio. I gave him my 5 ladies, he has 3 males and 2 females. This should even things out for his tank a bit and gives me room for the figure 8s that I wanted. I really want a porcupine one day, but that will have to wait until I can get at least a 150g saltwater setup.

Anyways, just wanted to let peeps know that the clown pleco is now with the dwarf puffer in the snail tank. They should be very happy there.

If you look at my signature, you will always see my current layout.


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## AquariumTech (Oct 12, 2010)

Yea clown plecos arent social at all. I got one cause it looked cool a long time ago, hated it. They are territorial, dont eat algae, and hide all day. The best way to at least try, is to make sure he is the only pleco in the tank. Give him plenty of space, provide a ton of hiding spots, get gravel that has some of his colors in it, provide a ton of driftwood, and maybe a moonlight because they mostly are nocturnal.


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## toddnbecka (Jun 30, 2006)

Figure 8's and mollies will be fine in brackish water but salt isn't good for pleco's, and brackish water would likely be fatal. I lost a number of young BN when I treated a couple of tanks for Ich with salt.


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## CyberBob (Jul 22, 2011)

toddnbecka said:


> Figure 8's and mollies will be fine in brackish water but salt isn't good for pleco's, and brackish water would likely be fatal. I lost a number of young BN when I treated a couple of tanks for Ich with salt.


Bristlenose are about the only Pleco I know of that can actually thrive in low-end brackish water. I'm only talking about 1.003-1.005 though. Have you ever had any problems keeping a bristlenose in that low level of salt? I know most catfish won't do well at all in salt though. Bristlenose just seem to be the excepotion. But, I could be wrong and if I am, I definetly need to know. I could replace him with a couple gobies perhaps?
Also, Id only recommend keeping an adult bristlenose in any amount of salt and slowly raising the salt level by about .001 every couple of weeks. The big guy seems to be OK so far. He's very active and seems happy. No redness or anything either. He's a nice healthy pink so far. But, the SL is only at about 1.002 at the moment. He's been in 1.007 before and did just fine for a month before I ended up getting rid of that puffer and went back to freshwater.


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## AquariumTech (Oct 12, 2010)

Catfish and most other scaleless fish are very intolerant to salt, I dont even use a small amount of aquarium salt in the tanks I have these types of fish. My tanks are planted too though and plants dont like salt either.


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## toddnbecka (Jun 30, 2006)

I never figured the salinity, just dosed 1 Tbsp/5 gallons to treat an outbreak of Ich a few months ago. I lost a number of BN and 3 of 4 L-204's that didn't have Ich, had to have been the salt that did them in. Not all the BN's in the salted tanks died, some seemed to be fine, not sure what the deal was with that.


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## AquariumTech (Oct 12, 2010)

Also something weird I have noticed with a lot of catfish is, they are actually more tolerant to the ich medicine than salt lolz. I actually have experienced this first hand on a couple of my catfish species. Defiantly not good for the plants though, doing the ich bomb, destroys my plants real quick.


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