Volkswagen pleco

Panaque schaeferi

Also known as L203, L90C, Titanic panaque

FreshwaterFish

Care at a glance

Temperature: 77–84°F (25–29°C)
pH: 6.0–7.4
Adult size: 23.6 in (60 cm)
Minimum tank: 264 gal (1,000 L)
Temperament: Peaceful
Social behavior: Solitary
Swim level: Bottom
Difficulty: Difficult
Breeding: Hard
Rarity: Rare
Origin: Upper Amazon, Peru
Family: Loricariidae

Overview

The Volkswagen pleco is a giant wood-eating catfish whose hobby nicknames are a fair warning about its size. It is peaceful toward other fish but is best kept singly, since adults can be territorial with their own kind and simply take up enormous room. It lives on the bottom, rasping at driftwood and grazing surfaces. Give it big, calm tankmates rather than anything small enough to be bothered by a fish this large. It needs a lot of driftwood to gnaw, plus sinking vegetables, algae wafers, and some protein foods. This is a huge, messy fish that produces a heavy waste load, so it needs a tank of around 1000 liters or more with very strong filtration.

In the wild

This pleco comes from big rivers of the upper Amazon, especially the Solimoes and its tributaries in Peru, where it grazes and gnaws submerged wood from fallen trees. A tank for an adult must be large and warm, about 25 to 29 C, with soft to neutral water, a pH of roughly 6.0 to 7.4, and strong flow with high oxygen. Fill it with large driftwood, both as food and as cover, over a sand base. Heavy filtration and frequent water changes are needed to handle the waste of a big wood-eater.

Good to know

Panaque schaeferi is an armored catfish in the family Loricariidae, growing to at least 60 centimeters, which makes it one of the largest and heaviest of all the wood-eating plecos. It uses spoon-shaped teeth to rasp wood, though it feeds mainly on the microorganisms and film on the bark rather than digesting the wood itself, and its droppings look like sawdust. It was described in 2010, and it is hard to breed in home tanks given its size.

Did you know

The hobby names it after a car, and the joke undersells it: this is thought to be the largest of the wood-eating plecos, and it kept growing well past its cute juvenile stage long before science formally described it in 2010.