First off, I admittedly know nothing about plecos. My only experience is I have about 30 or so bn plecos scattered through my tanks as diatom controllers, and they are brown algae devouring machines. All are very healthy and not shy in the least. I have never lost a single one.
I decided I would like to keep some fancier plecos in my show tanks upstairs. I have been looking for fancy plecos that can handle higher ph. I run typical malawi numbers for ph, kh, gh. ph is around 8.2. I also run 1tsp of salt and 1 tbls of epsom per 5 gal. Definitely not ideal for South American Plecos. For my first attempt (about a month ago) I added a young 3-4" emporer/flash pleco to my all male peacock/hap tank. So far so good. He rarely comes out, but during spot checks, looks healthy and fat. I may have not handled his acclimation very well, and probably just got lucky. All I did was put him in quarantine tank with equal parameters for a week, then dumped him in. I just got a really nice pair of Green phantoms and would like to give them a shot. Since buying them I have done a lot of reading on the web. After reading countless articles and forums on the subject, I am a little confused. Some say no way can you keep fancy plecos in a rift setup, others say they have done it with no problems. Some just dump them in, others spend over a month introducing them gradually to rift parameters. I want to be successful keeping these guys in my show tank, but don't want to compromise the plecos life in doing so. If it works I would like to get some different ones. If you guys/girls advise against it, I will just keep these guys in the neutral tank they are in. Thanks a lot for your help.
I decided I would like to keep some fancier plecos in my show tanks upstairs. I have been looking for fancy plecos that can handle higher ph. I run typical malawi numbers for ph, kh, gh. ph is around 8.2. I also run 1tsp of salt and 1 tbls of epsom per 5 gal. Definitely not ideal for South American Plecos. For my first attempt (about a month ago) I added a young 3-4" emporer/flash pleco to my all male peacock/hap tank. So far so good. He rarely comes out, but during spot checks, looks healthy and fat. I may have not handled his acclimation very well, and probably just got lucky. All I did was put him in quarantine tank with equal parameters for a week, then dumped him in. I just got a really nice pair of Green phantoms and would like to give them a shot. Since buying them I have done a lot of reading on the web. After reading countless articles and forums on the subject, I am a little confused. Some say no way can you keep fancy plecos in a rift setup, others say they have done it with no problems. Some just dump them in, others spend over a month introducing them gradually to rift parameters. I want to be successful keeping these guys in my show tank, but don't want to compromise the plecos life in doing so. If it works I would like to get some different ones. If you guys/girls advise against it, I will just keep these guys in the neutral tank they are in. Thanks a lot for your help.