My Big Black Pleco

In the year that I was born my father bought a 55 gallon fish tank.  He decided to raise guppies.  Along with the guppies he bought a very small Plecostomus, AKA a pleco.  It's also known as one of them "Sucker Fish" that gets rid of the algae on the side of your tank.  I ended up naming him, "Big Joe" as he was six inches long and much bigger than any of the guppies in the tank.

Big Joe lived to twelve years old.  That's not bad considering how much care was put into the tank.  Dad kind of gave up on it.  When I was old enough to really start taking care of the tank I cleaned it up, and changed the kind of fish we had in it.  That's when we bought, "Joe the 2nd."  We bought him at about two inches long.  He ended up growing to about six inches and then passed away.

Well, I'm a bit over forty years old now.  The last fourteen years (or more) we've had "Joe the 6th."  Honestly, I didn't expect that Joe would even make it in the tank.  The store employee didn't treat Joe all that gently.  First she didn't put in the a bag that was big enough.  You see, Joe was about six inches long when I bought him, and the bag she put him in wouldn't let him turn around.

So I said something to her about the bag not being big enough.  So she grabbed another bag, and went to put him in it.  Unfortunately, Joe fell out of the bag and into a small dish where they kept the brine shrimp.  The employee then grabbed Joe by the head, and chucked him into the much larger bag.  I thought to myself, "There's no way he's going to survive the night.  She had to of hurt him too much."

But the next morning I found him alive and well.  Joe the 6th actually grew to be my biggest pleco (of all the Joes.)  He was about seven inches.  That's when I read up on feeding him supplementary foods.  Even I figured there wasn't enough algae in the tank to feed him.  So I started adding shrimp pellets and algae wafers.  Everything in the tank loves the shrimp pellets so that worked out well.  Joe would end up snacking on the pellets and wafers.

 Little by little he started to grow.  But lately his growth has just taken off.  It seems he went from nine inches long to much larger.  One day he was hanging on the side of the tank.  I happened to have my tools with me for a project inside the house.  So I took my measuring tape out just to find how big he had gotten.

He had grown to exactly twelve inches.  That makes him the biggest pleco I've ever had by a whopping five inches.  Here is a photo of my giant angelfish Blackie Lawless (yes he's named after the lead singer of W.A.S.P.)

Here is a photo of Joe next to Blackie.

You can see just how big he has gotten.  The only real problem I've had is when Joe gets excited, swims too fast, and jumps out of the water.  He ends up hitting his head on the glass canopy.  I'll admit, it's scared the bejesus out of me a few times.

I've heard aquarium owners say they've had plecos live up to twenty years.  Now, Joe was already pretty big when I bought him.  I know he has to be around sixteen years of age at least.  I'll keep taking care of him as I want to him keep hanging around the tank.  I mean, look into those eyes.  He's kind of adorable, right?