I bought a blue phantom pleco which is about 4 inches in lenth on saturday.
i done alot of research on the thing, because i did not want another 1 of them huge commen pleco's that grow to like 16 inches.
these phantom blue's grow to an average size of 7 inches which aint to bad, their aint as messy as common, but cost alot more.
he was priced at 42 uk pound, but after flirting with the sales adviser i managed to get him for 20 pound.
as soon as i put him in the tank, he was off doing his thing, i was amazed, i thought he would go hiding away for a few hours, i was wrong.
he must of cleaned the whole lenth of my glass which is 6ft within a few hours.
they say phantom blue pleco's aint as good with algea as common, but from what i have seen, this little man is amazing.

just wondering has anyone else had 1 and how did it get on?
i also thought i might have trouble with my oscars which are about 6 and half inches now but they aint bothered at all, (fingers crossed).

Hi Glen!

Is your pleco still getting on ok with your Oscars and doing his job!?

Im also looking for a pleco for my O tank as i moved my common pleco to one of my smaller tanks and am looking, as you were, for somthing that wont grow too big as, due to already having one common pleco, the last thing i need is 2 giant ones!

iv looked into blue phantom plecs and also gold nugget plecs, however both times have been put off by price! (gold nugget being the cheaper at £30)

however it would be worth it if i knew it did its job, i assume you would reccommend the blue phantom?

if so we could be onto a winner!

Matt

to be honest mate, i couldnt advise any yet, becase i aint had him long enough, but so far so good, he's doing his job well, nice clean glass and no algea about, he's only about 4 inches, he should grow no larger than 7-8 inches. so thats ok, and he is in a 6ft tank, but so far so good.
askhammatt... if you buy 1, a gold nugget and a blue phantom are the same really, i wouldnt worry to much about which 1 to get.
they both do the business without getting to big.

most plecs will do ok with oscars but only if not small enough to be food. this can be a real big problem if your oscar eats a plec cos the spikes that cover them to protect them also make them a pain to remove from the oscars mouth. generally though they dont seem to bother each other. i have seen many different sizes and types in with oscars and mine has never even looked at each other. mines around 10" full grown. i think you know about the larger sized one so wont bother to mention it. they are messy though. Some plecs just dont get on with another plecs.

cheers for the advice guys!!

sounds like a winner to me

hope your plec carries on doing the business glen!

Matt

i noticed last night when my oscar was out cleaning the glass 1 of my oscars came over and sort of nudged him off the glass and then chased him until he swam under some sea rock which i have in my tank, since then i aint seen the pleco, i think the oscar has scared him slightly.
he should be ok though.
i'll try and get a pic later, he's the nicest plec i have ever seen.

sorry mate.... no matter how beautiful any plec would be,
i won't love them at all. this is because of some stupid
haobbyist who throw away their plecs in our fresh water.
today, they ate considered as menace damaging the balance
ecology in fresh water. can you imagine a plecs wieighing
10 kilograms killing any indemic fish we had?

please surf: "janitor fish at Laguna De Bay!" you will understand.
and i hope people in your area will not make the same mistake.

that looks awful paul, some people really should'nt be aloud animals!!!!

think the climate in england would be a touch on the cold side for anything like to happen with fish here but we av similier problems from when people released mink into our waterways.....desimated our native wildlife

Matt

thats why people like me are employed by the governing authorities to controll these ecological problems that natural predators cant ...as they too have all been wiped out here in the uk

Its total crazyness.

the natural world is in dire straights my friend........very very sad

I know exactly what you mean.