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Old July 15th, 2006, 09:28 PM
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Sneaky Sneaky is offline
Fish Guru - Formerly sneakypete79
 
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Ladysmith British Columbia
Posts: 536
Hi there,
well 2 things are possible that could happen.
The first possible thing is stunting.
This is when the tank is too small, and what happens to the fish is
that its bones stop growing, but internal organs continue to grow.
As the fishes body stops growing, eventually the organs all bunch
up and either explode within the fish, or develop cancers and they usually
die a very painful slow death.
The secnd thing that can happen, and often does with Plecos,
is that they dont stop growing, and will continue to grow, until they
are so large they need to bend around in the tank to survive.
They usually become extremely hostile, intolerant of other fish, and often
kill the other fish for more space. Eventually they will injure themselves lethally, jump out, or even break the tank.

My suggestion to your room-mate - take the pleco back to the pet store.
Exchange it for store credit, for an algae eating fish that is small enough for her tank, such as Otocinclus catfish (dwarf suckers - 1.5 inches),
or a Bristlenose Pleco (ancistrus pleco - 4 inches), or a rubbernose Pleco (4 inches, also called bulldog, pitbull, rubberlip plecos).

Also, angelfish grow too big for a 20g tank too.
They can grow to be 8-10 inches from snout to base of tail, and from
top to bottom as much as 14-18 inches tall. If kept in a short tank,
they will develop bent and deformed fins.
Angels should be kept in a tank at least 18-24 inches tall,
the smallest I know of being a 25G tall tank, which is 18 inches tall.
Also, if the angels grow larger and pair up to breed,
they will eliminate all the other fish within such a small tank by killing
them.
Angels can be hostile while breeding. It is very difficult to determine
gender in angelfish till mature.

You could suggest to your roommate - that a much better and more
appropriate stocking for her tank would be something like:
6-8 of whatever kind of tetra she has - they are schooling fish and should always be kept in groups.
6-8 Tiger Barbs - also a schooling fish and can be very very aggressive and nippy if not kept in large enough groups. Diff. Color T-barbs like greens, orange, albinos can all be mixed in 1 group.
1 Bristlenose Pleco OR 4-5 Otocinclus Catfish OR 5-6 Corydoras Catfish,
but not all.
That would be a quite overstocked tank, but with once weekly- every 10th day water changes of 35% could be manageable, and live plants of course
would be an excellent choice.

Hope this helps!
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