rs, that zebra pleco is awesome, but not $400 awesome.
Yup - not $400 awesome for me either ...
But there might be folks that would pay it.
The page I pulled that image off of was a wholesaler's ... I believe they mentioned that there is a ban in Brazil on exports of at least that particular species, perhaps others as well. So that means that the market is limited to whatever has been already exported and is being bred elsewhere, unless one wants to go black market. Assuming that they are actually being bred in captivity of course.
Arbitrarily constrain the supply below demand, and the prices will rise ... assuming there is sufficient demand.
OTOH, you can't blame the Brazilians for wanting to preserve the natural resources that fall under their jurisdiction.
Our standard pleco outlived/survived every other fish and is the only reason we kept the aquarium. I bought him at about 1.5" for a few dollars and 7 years later, he's maybe 8". I have to admit, I never fed him for the first 6 years. Somehow he managed just eating the available algae. Now we give him those tetra food discs and he loves them.
He was hardy ... and
patient ...
Mine seems to be scarfing up the broccoli and shrimp ... in addition to working over the gravel, rocks, and glass sides of the aquarium. He's pretty small (2" ?) ... so a single medium shrimp chopped up will probably last a week, to feed him and his tankmates. Especially if I'm supplementing it with broccoli and flakes. From what I can tell, he actually seems to prefer the broccoli ... but eats the shrimp as well.
The guy with the Royal and Zebra plecos also had a 15" one which he offered up ... think it was a Tiger or a Butterfly pleco tho' ...
Just a little too large for my present set up ...
He craps so much now, I already need to clean the tank again....
:laughing:
Yeah ... I remember when my Green Terrors got up around 5" to 6" tank maintenance was a pretty frequent occurrence.
You use a gravel vac siphon to clean it ?
He doesn't bother the angel fish, nor they him.
Yeah ... plecos seem to get along pretty well with most everything - at least in terms of other similar-sized adult fish (eggs and fry are a different matter) - except others of their own kind.
I have the angels trained to chase me from one end of the tank to the other, using food for motivation of course. It seems they know when I walk past, that "He's" the guy to chase, since I feed them.
Heheheh .... undoubtedly they know who the "bringer of the flakes" is ...
You could probably get them to eat from your hand without much effort. Maybe little bits of boiled shrimp or chopped up earthworms ... or even a freshly swatted fly.
And it sounds to me like you have "The Woman" on board and will have to start calling her cupcake again.
LOL ... yeah ... she's good with it ... as long as I keep it under control.
She managed to call me after she had finished for the day while I was still in Petsmart ... (... caught again ... :laughing
I had headed up there to pick up some silicone airline after I noticed I was having some leakage issues with the old vinyl stuff, and they had a pretty good price on it. Of course she could tell that I'm ...
somewhere ... (background noise, etc) ... and I got the
"Oh ..." when I told her where I was ...
Managed to avoid any drama by asking if she wanted me to pick up some Cat Lax (for hairballs) which we had just run out of.
"Yes ... and pick up some wet food too ... make sure it's the pate ... not the chucks or anything with gravy ..."
They were out of the silicone tubing ... but I did manage to pick up a 20 long Aqueon glass tank for under the second 55g tank ...
At 37.5% off - basically a buck a gallon - it was too hard to pass up.
They also had some 1" or so African Spotted Leaf Fish come in, in their Friday order, which were on sale @ 50% off ($5 a pop), which I did not buy (wanted to check and see if they were "live fish only" for food) ... but I might head back up there tomorrow and snag them if they still have them ...
