My Pleco became a discus eater overnight!

[kdazzel]

I have a pleco which has been fine in the tank for a long time. Well he's gotton pretty big and all the sudden one of my smallest discus came up missing. Then about a week later another is gone and I look and my pleco is sucking on bones. No fish left. I tell my husband about it. the next day he's got another discus, all thats left is bones and then he's chasing my other discus like a maniac trying to get another one!!!!!!! I mean really really aggressive!!!! We took him out and threw him in the bottom of the wet dry. I'm calling the fish store today to see if they'll take him. I can't believe it. On a good note my wet/dry is spotless. He cleaned all the algea out down there.

I did'nt really believe that about pleco's but I learned my lesson the hard way. He had been fine in the tank for soo long.

kdazzel

[Kindredspirit]

How sad! I heard that they have to be pretty hungry to do that tho Were you feeding the Pleco on a regular basis?


Marie ~

[pcsb23]

Sorry you lost some discus.

I have known plecs get the taste for discus slime often, in fact every common plec I've owned has developed it. I have known this lead to the death of the discus due to the stress and removal of the protective slime. Plecs will scavenge on dead fish too. It is not unreasonable that a plec may atatck and kill, but I have never witnessed it or heard of it until now.

Whether it was due to hunger or some predatory instinct is hard to work out. I guess you could feed it up in the wet/dry for a week and re-introduce it, if you were curious, but I wouldn't. I would do what you are doing and get rid.

Get some BN's or similar, whilst they may be boring they are reliable.

[kdazzel]

Thanks for the condolescences!!
This pleco was always a pig, I feed him algae wafers all the time and he eats them, but he would pig out on everything like blood worms, brine shrimp, beef heart. I mean aggressively too, he did'nt hide, he'd run out to eat when i fed the discus.

Thanks for listening to me whine.
kdazzel

[CAGE-RATTLER]

Now you have me worried!!

My 100 gallon is about to be turned into an all discus tank and i was going to leave my 1 foot pleco in there to keep the tank clean.

I might have to re-think that now.

[White Worm]

Its not just a discus slime thing. I have had other freshwater fish and plecos eventually get big and then they get agressive (chasing fish down to attach) I removed a large chocolate pleco once because it was trying to attach. I think they just get the taste or realize they can. I dont think it is because they are starving. I was feeding this pleco plenty of wafers and veggies.

[poconogal]

Now you have me worried!!

My 100 gallon is about to be turned into an all discus tank and i was going to leave my 1 foot pleco in there to keep the tank clean.

I might have to re-think that now.

I think I would. Better safe than ending up with a 100g pleco tank!

[TRAKURT]

Some strains of Plecos are carnivorous.

[cobaltblue]

Hey Kdazzel,

what type of pleco is it? Clown plecos and bristlenose plecos are great. They stay small and dont bother the other fish at all.

[Ed13]

Some strains of Plecos are carnivorous.

Not some, almost all plecs are(or at least more than many think)!! The sucker on them was evolved for holding them against the water currents which all like, and not for eating algae. We are the ones that assumed otherwise. As a matter of fact most loricaridae enjoy the awfuchs(the congregation of miniature animals like copepods and ostracods among others) found in the wood and rocks they gnaw on more than the algae that as a consequence is eaten!
Not all are vegetarian but all are opportunistic!
The common plec(Liposarcus Pardalis) for example enjoys a mostly vegetarian diet until around 10-12 inches were it switches to a higher protein diet and even becomes a predator if the need arises.
BTW, once you appreciate the sight of a wild common pleco(24 inches or bigger) you quickly understand that this is not a fish recommended for the home aquarium

[wolfbane]

.......and yet the pet stores tout them as great algae eaters and never tell people how big they get. I saw one in a neighborhood creek last week, had to be 18 inches at least!!

[Ed13]

.......and yet the pet stores tout them as great algae eaters and never tell people how big they get. I saw one in a neighborhood creek last week, had to be 18 inches at least!!

There is a dam in a river here that you can see them from quite a far so they most be huge. I knew someone that casted net in this river and he told me that one sweep of the net would catch 3 or 4 in the 18" range and sometimes bigger, obviously once catch most of them were destroyed because they won't be able to get them loose without cutting the net.
The biggest that I've seen measured from head to tail 28"
you don't even want to know how deep and wide you can see their breeding holes in the bank of the river

[crazie.eddie]

Some strains of Plecos are carnivorous.

Yeah, but they are not predators like piranhas. I would have to assume that the pleco, being such a large size, was being starved. Plecos normally eat dead animal matter, so the discus may had already died or practically near death to be eaten. If the pleco was large enough, but not fed sufficiently, then it would start looking for food elsewhere, such as the slime coating on discus. How long would a heavy weight boxer live on a small salad 3 times a day? It was only inevitable that a hungry pleco would start feeding on the fish slime coating sooner or later.

[Marinemom]

It was a common pleco that killed one of my blue discus about a month ago. He did this all in about 20 minutes. I had to relocate him to my 125 gallon cichlid tank. I will not put another common pleco in the tank with my discus or other sensitive fish.

Diane

[Ed13]

Yeah, but they are not predators like piranhas. I would have to assume that the pleco, being such a large size, was being starved. Plecos normally eat dead animal matter, so the discus may had already died or practically near death to be eaten. If the pleco was large enough, but not fed sufficiently, then it would start looking for food elsewhere, such as the slime coating on discus. How long would a heavy weight boxer live on a small salad 3 times a day? It was only inevitable that a hungry pleco would start feeding on the fish slime coating sooner or later.

Ok, not quite a piraña, but you'd be surprise how easily is for a big pleco to corner even fast fish in a corner and eat them, never mind a slow moving laterally compressed cichlid! And among the large family of loricaridae there are many carnivore plecos that although they will consume dead animals, don't have many scavenging options as carcases don't last very long in the amazon and they have to result to predation albeit of small crustaceans such as shrimp, snails and even small fish!
And like I mentioned earlier Liposarcus pardalis exhibits a more vegetarian diet with opportunistic feedings of meat when young and an omnivore to a higher protein diet as it matures somewhere near the year old or 8-12" long, the animal is only doing what comes natural to him even if it was well fed. Due keep in mind that like in real live there are individual characters among members of a species!