Talk:Hypostomus plecostomus

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 23 August 2021 and 4 December 2021. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Emigracew. Peer reviewers: Mpolit4, Tracha3.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 00:10, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Initial message
I think this page should be deleted the same fish is already represented in a longer and actually informative article at wikipedia — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.147.178.157 (talk) 17:25, 30 April 2005 (UTC)

nocturnal
Not sure about this - some might be, some might not be. Also it's possible to confuse nocturnal with 'not coming out when there is a lot of activity' - ie movement - in my experience catfish of this type come out when nobody is watching.HappyVR 18:40, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Also may be crepuscular?HappyVR 21:01, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Removed a sentence added by 123.51.0.225: "It is a messy fish though." If you strongly feel this is true and needs mentioning, reword it? --Shyland 03:10, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

regeneration
This fish is often sold as compatible with other aggressive species and catfish are often said to be compatible on wiki. Once hurt though (fins bitten off in chunks) is it still capable of surviving and regnerating the damage?

Recently my Hypostomus was bitten by a Red Zebra whose tank it was cleaning from algae.

Lsuacner (talk) 10:17, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

It has been several weeks and he regenerated the damage, I think as long as the fin is still attached to the body there is hope.

Lsuacner (talk) 10:11, 16 August 2008 (UTC)


 * 'Healed' is the word you're looking for and most minor wounds on fish are capable of healing, including to rays and fins. Kat (talk) 20:08, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Food fish
A blog here states that they taste pretty good, rather than having no value as a food fish.

http://rule-303.blogspot.com/2011/07/eating-plecos.html — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.15.85.60 (talk) 05:42, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

Name
As far as I can tell, Hypostomus plecostomus means "Low-mouth wicker-mouth". Is this really to do with the sucker? Correctrix (talk) 01:42, 13 October 2015 (UTC)

Invasive species
The picture in the provided link (24) clearly shows a Pterygoplichthys (P. pardalis/dijunctivus) and not H. plecostomus. I'm also not aware of any solid proof that there are alien populations in India, Sri Lanka or elsewhere, IMHO it would be better to delete this passage, or state that "most if not all account for alien populations of that species are due to mis-identifications". Karsten Schönherr (talk) 16:21, 12 November 2023 (UTC)


 * link (12) : the population in San Marcos river is a well known Hypostomus population but it's definitely not Hypostomus plecostomus
 * link 13) : not accessible for me, in Florida there are also Hypostomus sp., the population that I am aware of is wrongly identified as H. plecostomus, body proportions etc. clearly differ
 * link (22) : first two pictures show Pterygoplichthys, 3rd one Hypostomus, but not H. plecostomus
 * link (25) Mexico: picture shows Pterygoplichthys Karsten Schönherr (talk) 15:44, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

In the aquarium
This passage seems to be based on the experience with "common pleco" which is Pterygoplichthys. H. plecostomus is rare to non-existing in pet trade. I do keep H. plecostomus for several years now from close to the type locality (caught be myself). They are not agressive. The maximum size of this fish is far less than 50 cm (will be corrected at fishbase with next release) also in the wild, see Weber et al. (2012): largest specimen found was less than 25 cm (SL). IMHO the whole passage shoud be deleted as there are close to no experiences in the aquarium. Karsten Schönherr (talk) 15:26, 16 November 2023 (UTC)