I looked at some of the various species of plecos on aquariumlife.net. Really like the looks of the following...
Baryancistrus sp L177 aka gold nugget pleco
Hypancistrus zebra aka Zebra pleco
Ancistrus sp. l182 aka Starlight bristle nose
Any of these better than the others on "house keeping" duty?
Thanks
Gold nuggets and zebra plecos (I assume L046?) are both hard to keep alive if you're newer to plecos and/or don't have time to constantly monitor them. I forget what Pete Durkin said at an MCAS presentation last year about importing gold nuggets but at least at one point I think he was doing good to keep 1 out of 25 alive via the shipping process. And they can be finicky once you get them into the aquarium.
Beyond that, they are both expensive. Zebra plecos for example go for like $150+ depending on size ($200-300 each for adults at breeding size when you can even find them).
I'm not sure about the starlights.
If you want something that will clean up brown algae and leftover food scraps, the common bristlenose varieties of ancistrus (brown, albino, calico, blue eyed, lemon drop, and the like) are probably your best bet. They stay small, they're hardy, and they are cheap.
If you want to do just a pleco tank by all means go for it, but I would not mix expensive L# plecos like gold nuggets or zebras especially with synodontis or other hardier african catfish.
L# plecos are beautiful and worth keeping. But they also do best in a species tank especially for breeding, or at least a geographically oriented tank like with neons or angelfish or similar that won't bug them.
This is not only because of risk of loss, but also because of different water preferences.
SA plecos like softer water. African catfish like harder water. Synodontis like meatier foods, while most (not all) of the SA plecos are more vegetarian in their diet - cucumber, zucchini, melon, romaine, etc. Ancistrus like a bit more meat so might be a better match (e.g. bristlenose) with synodontis.
