I'm gonna try to acclimate pleco's

becon776

becon776

New member
see subject... plecos seem to be one of the hardiest damn fish I have EVER encountered in the FW trade. Thinking of trying to SLOWLY acclimitize a few of them to 1.023 sp gravity. I have had them in a brackish water tank before and they seemed unbothered. In my old pond they survived the winter and outlived even the goldfish.

If this can be done successfully then it would seem an absolute magic bullet for algae on LR and glass.

Don't worry if they seem to be in distress I will return them back to standard FW salinity. After all they have acclimated clownfish to FW (well almost FW) haven't they?
 
good luck but i dont think it will wok, at least for not too long if it does.. and i have not heard of anyone acclimating clownfish to FW..
 
Aside from salinity is the issue of PH; don't they come from lower PH water? Also there's the issue of flow, and the fishes not knowing what a Cnidarian is. A while ago I had used Rosie Reds to initiate feeding in predators, they would occasionally try and take shelter in anemones, not knowing that is a really bad idea.

I have wondered about a few other species, particularly "air breathers" like betas. I was curious if the fact that they really don't use their gills would help them acclimate to a marine environment.

Good luck, and I'll be curious how this goes.
 
what I have read is that a true freshwater fish will dehydrate in salt water and a marine fish will actually drown something to do with osmosis through there skin.
 
true gary, but you have to remember that with life there is ALWAYS a range of tolerance and hardiness. try this experiment with discus and they're dead in minutes.... goldfish who knows... and SVXH6 i have seen ads for clowns that can live in a vitually fw environment I am just basing my exp on the fact that these fish survived in a damn cess pool that appeared to filled with diareeah ;) eg the opening of a small pond in spring when even the almight goldfish had met their demise.
Now... the point of not knowing what a cnidarian is hmmm... that is exactly the reason why I posted this here I didn't think of that... needless to say if I put the fish in and they live I'll be having nightmared of pleco's chewing on my hammers and zoa's
;-P
 
To chime in about the flow issue. I used to live in Central Florida where we had plenty of Pl*cos living in the rivers and lakes. I have seen 2 foot long Pl*cos living in rivers that had quite a current and even rapids. I certainly think that flow would not be an issue. As far as the salinty I think you would have a better time acclimating them to a low salinty of 1.016 that going for full reef salinity. Those clowns that they sell that are "acclimated" usually need some sort of salinity to survive. I have also seen Pl*cos in the esturaries and even oscars for that matter. I dont know how long they spend in that water but I do know for a fact that their are Pl*cos and oscars living in the waters where the Hillsborough River meets Tampa Bay. I have also caught Large mouth bass in that inlet. And Red Drum for that matter.

Scott
 
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Becon.... wasnt doubting you, or the FW clownfish for the matter, i just said that i have not heard of it.... that is pretty cool they have done that i would be interested in reading about it if anyone knows a good article or site with information..
 
Osmoregulation is what we are discussing here.. it is the ability of the animals to control(regulate) the amounts of salt and water in their tissues.
In most cases Marine animals tend to hypoosmoregulate ( the process would be called hypoosmoregulation)..hypo meaning less than,.. translates to their salt levels being less than the seawater they are swimming in.
On the flip side Freshwater animals maintain salt in their bodies at a greater concentration than the water they are swimming in. So even though marine animals are bathed in a salt solution they must continually drink sea water or die of dehydration. This is because the ocean they swim in is saltier than they are. It continually wicks away or draws the water from their body. If I remember from my reading along time ago .Marine fish are consuming water at a rate of 0.2 to 0.5% of their body weight per hour to offset their loss of water.
Another way they reduce loss is not urinating in the water hardly at all. Any excess salts in the water they drink is excreted through the mucus cells in the skin,in their feces and by the kidneys. they also use cells in the gills which are adapted for this purpose.
When the salinity of the water changes quickly it stresses the daylights out of our Marine wards.
The pleco is from an acidic to neutral environment...They will adapt slowly to harder water, this is not usually a huge factor if done slowly over time. It is possible they may have some tolerance for a higher salt level. But given the make up of the Amazon water and the flow of the river I do not think that there is much of a salt build up at all.
Based on they way the Osmoregulation works in a fish I would suggest that Fw fish be kept inFreshwater conditions and not in Marine salinity levels. I would have strong reservations in subjecting the fish to such unnatural conditions...I would suggest further that God has already produced the Pleco in a saltwater edition it being called a lawnmower blennie.
This all said I have used sea salt in the water combined with warm water for plecos that have a fungus problem, but not at salinity that replicates conditions that are 1.015-1.023.
Just my 2 cents
 
Would a Pleco even eat Marine Algae?

Maybe it would eat Nori(Sea Veggies), but not sure about Diatoms, Hair Algae, or other problem algae.
 
Salt water fish remove salt from the water around them. Freshwater fish take up salt water from thier environment. very few freshwater fish have the ability to filter the salt out of the water they drink, so in a high salt water environment they will dehydrate just like a person would. This is also why saltwater fish can be acculumated to lower saline content water and survive but few freshwater fish can. This experiment will only really test the endurance of the pleco. It will probably end in its death. also marine algae contains alot of trace elements like iodine that are overly common in freshwater. So the diet, Environment, and pH are agaisnt you on this trial.
 
It won't work, aside from the salinity issue ( pleco's are durable and able to tolerate quite disparate water conditions for a short while but they don't have kidney's adequate for a salt water environment. They are not found in tidal basins & estuaries. Locarids are found in fast flowing streams higher up in water systems ( mountains & lakes ). They can not handle a marine environment and will either die of dehydration or kidney failure.)

They aren't likely to eat the algae you want them to eat. Plecos are specialized consumers of aufwuchs type algal growth. This complex algal & invertebrate film has an entirely different composition in reef tanks. They do not eat cyano. They do not eat volonia, they may eat bryopsis but it would probably be hard for them to consume. Most plecos will refuse nori.

They are also significantly bigger and messier than the marine counterparts typically used. Think about the mass involved in an 8 inch pleco, the ammount of waste it would produce. The amount of distruction it would cause as it tried to settle itself down and get a meal. They don't fit into tight spaces well.

Compare the demands placed on the environment by a vigorous pleco to the commands placed by an urchin, turban snail, conch, rabbit fish or tang. all of which have evolved to feed in a marine reef environment.

Live rock is significantly rougher than the smooth surfaces they are used to feeding on. This is why tangs have evolved suprisingly small mouths for a herbivore. They will not remove the detritus from cracks.

If you must try to adapt a fw herbivore to sw you may have a bit more success with a herbivorous species from a higher salinity environment such as the sleeper goby (brackish) or *gulp* mbuna.

I really can't recomend you do any of this; you are most likely condemning a fish to a slow painful death.
 
Honestly, the more I think about it, the grazing pattern of a pleco would probably make an algae problem worse in a marine tank by clearing more benficial biota than detrimental.

Lastly, rembmer that marine environments are much more hostile chemically, A pleco would have no or at best rudimentary resistence to the legions of toxins produced by tank inhabitants.
 
Re: I'm gonna try to acclimate pleco's

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7125455#post7125455 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by becon776
If this can be done successfully then it would seem an absolute magic bullet for algae on LR and glass.
Click to expand...
Herbivores merely recycle.
The "magic bullet" is to limit and export nutrients that fuel nuisance algae growth.
 
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