The 12 Best Small Tank Pleco's

With the recent passing of my bristlenose pleco Eval whom I had for roughly 4.5 years I realized that a pleco is a really good algae eater option for my aquarium needs in my goldfish tank so, I wanted to put together a quick list of the 8 best small tank pleco's.

Most of the pleco's listed below all require at least a 30 gallon sized tank to reach their adult size (aside from the Pitbull and Clown pleco listed below as it needs at least 20 gallons and the Pitbull seems to be more of an herbivore rather than omnivore like the others). Generally I find pleco's to be very hardy and adaptable to a wide range of water parameters, the main harmful things to these fish I would say from my experience is being sure to have 0 Nitrite (as that's harmful to most all fish) and also temperature should generally be in the mid 70F range. These fish are often shy, aggressive eaters, like hiding places (especially driftwood), like water movement, are typically more active at night, and they will clean algae off any plants, decor, glass etc. I don't recommend picking these fish up with your hands as they do have barbs behind there gills that stick out when threatened, and using nets can also end up injuring them (as I'm pretty certain that's what happened to my pleco). They generally need to be fed some type of algae wafer (I've been liking one by Omega One) but can also eat certain blanched vegetables, they may even eat some frozen foods (like bloodworms) and sinking pellets.

Pitbull

Size: 2.4"

True Zebra

Size: 3.5"

There is also the 6" Chocolate Zebra and the 3" Pseudo Zebra

Mega Clown

Size: 4

Or the other 4" Clown

Rio-Negro

Size: 4"

Bristlenose/Bushynose

Size: 4.5"

Tiger

Size: 5"

Gypsy King Tiger

Size: 5.5"

Snowball

Size: 6"

Or of similar appearance is the smaller 3" White-Spotted Ancistrus

Ranchu Weigh-In

Its been around 23 days since the ranchu's last weigh-in and Bumblez has finally put on some weight at 35 grams now, while Oakki is a whopping 40 grams.

Bumblez (left), and Oakki (right)

Bumblez gained 3.5 grams since the last weigh-in and Oakki gained 6.5 grams. In my opinion most of Oakki's weight/growth seems to be at his belly area and tail length, while Bumblez growth seems to be at his back and possibly a little on his wen. I still do around two 50% water changes at least twice a week, sometimes the depth of the aquarium water varies but I feel they do better at a depth no more than 10 inches (which was recommended to me by the breeder as well).

I've been trying out numerous foods lately and the first week they ate at least twice a day which varied and possibly consisted of some nori, NLS (New Life Spectrum pellets for Goldfish), sliced ginger, Hikari frozen bloodworms, plain cooked white rice, and Hikari Lionhead pellets (just playing with different food options). The second week since I had a fish sitter they were being fed once a day sharing a 1/4 Tsp of the NLS. The 3rd week I got a fish feeder which dispersed NLS gradually over 6 hours, then a few Hikari Lionhead pellets over the following 6 hours, and then the feeding repeated again throughout 24 hours so they're almost constantly able to graze for tid bits of food (which I've read is more natural for ranchu/fancy goldfish) although it's not really going over the amount of food they generally consume in a day.

Having the feeder does seem to make them more active and curious about finding food so I'll probably continue with that regime while also giving them frozen bloodworms 1-2 times a week along with it, and perhaps a little piece nori once a week (Bumblez seems to enjoy that, while Oakki seems to enjoy the daily pellets of Hikari Lionhead).

Meet Meko

Sadly while I had taken an unexpected week long trip my fish sitter had informed me that Ebo was not looking so good, a few days later he passed on to the big fish bowl in the sky. However, I now have a very awesome new veil-tail betta I got from PetSmart this past weekend and his name is Meko. I picked that name because my betta's seem to follow a pattern of their names ending in 'o', the 'k' is his own unique letter, the 'e' is to carry on Ebo's memory, and the 'm' is to carry on the beloved Mr. Moto's memory. While Ebo was a green-blue color, and Moto was a blue-black color, Meko is a blue-red color... I wish I could have found a betta that wasn't so blue but ultimately I picked him over the rest regardless. Meko does seem to have one flaw currently... his right fin-side gill seems to always be flared out slightly so I am currently trying to treat him to see if it changes.

Meko

Unlike my past betta's Meko seems to be a picky eater as he does not care for the usual Aqueon floating pellets. I had yet to find a betta that didn't like bloodworms, that did seem to catch his interest and get him eating. BTW I don't recommend the Aqueon Betta Treat Bloodworms, they're a bit too big for betta's in comparison to the Hikari brand which has smaller and redder colored bloodworms (I do recommend those ones as they seem better quality in my opinion). I even tried to pass the Aqueon pellets onto my hungry mollies but they too didn't care for them.

It was by chance that I tried out some new goldfish pellets which I just bought for my expecting ranchu, the New Life Spectrum 1mm goldfish pellets. Not only were the NLS pellets about half the size (probably a bit more than that even) of Aqueons but they were actually a better size for the small mouth of my betta. Shockingly, Meko LOVES them (his gills even flare open at times and he quickly gobbles them up, two at a time if he can)... although he refuses to eat the ones that sink to the bottom, fair enough. He even prefers the NLS pellets over the Aqueon bloodworms, he just goes crazy for the NLS pellets, it's awesome to see (I kind of feel bad for my past betta's seeing how happy Meko is with this new food). I had never seen a betta fish eat so much, so now I'm buying Meko the NLS for betta's (the cheapest I found for this food was on eBay for $8.99), and while this may be a bit pricey for betta food it will last a very long time as betta fish do not eat that much (eh, normally).

I also did some research on NLS for betta's online and was surprised to find that so many people and betta breeders were highly recommending it. I also found it interesting that people were mentioning that it may not have the highest amount of protein compared to other betta foods, but they were saying that it's actually a higher quality of protein and food that the betta is getting that matters more, which ultimately seems to make this NLS great for betta's.

*I will try to update this post later down the road when my NLS betta food arrives and let you know what Meko thinks of that. In the mean time here's a good video I found on the NLS food.

R.I.P. Ebo