Why does my pleco fish change colors?

vo1umeone

New member
I have 2 medium sized fancy goldfish (ryukin, black moor) and 1 Plecostomus (or pleco) in a 10 gal. freshwater.

Now, I was just wondering. Why does my pleco change colors? Sometimes he'll have a very vivid dark brown color to his skin, almost black on the darker spots even. And other times, he'll be a lighter brown color with some pastier colored brown in splotches .

He's perfectly healthy seeming. He has a decent amount of algae to eat and I usually put a couple of snow pea shells (strings removed) in the tank and they like to munch on that all day. I can't really feed him the algae eater food discs, because my ryukin goldfish is a tank (so his name is Beautiful Tank) and he's eat the whole algae disc and then gets constipated from it (he's a goof).

The temperature ranges from 75'F to 84'F and the light is usually on for a few hours a day.

Anyways, if it's a health issue, I'd like to know about it. Otherwise, I just wanted to know if it's normal and why plecos have changing skin color! It's kind of interesting. Let me know! Thanks
 
It may reflect what it's mood is. Whatever it is the tank will probably get too small for the pleco alone never mind the two goldfish. My normal pleco is about ten inches with many other fish in a 150 gallon. It shouldn't be a disease tho and you are doing just fine otherwise. Good luck and continue with fish.
 
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