Pleco ate J.D babies.

[Diverite]

About a two months before combining tanks into 150 gal fw. My Jack Dempseys mated and had lots of fry. The common pleco stayed out of the way for about 2 weeks, about the time J.D. fry started looking like fish things and free swimming all over the tank...... then in a span of 6 hours he ate them all... i guess that works cause I didn't want babies at the time but I thought he would at least spread it out a little.

Is it common for plecos to eat live food?

 

[5DollarFootLong]

WOOOOAH i have a 13 inch pleco and i never seen or heard of them eating live fish this is a first .

 

[xmurdererx]

basically whatever they can fit in they mouth they will tryto eat

 

[MonsterMinis]

common plecos are notorious egg eaters, and I deffinately wouldn't put it past them to eat fry. But I've also seen them harass a pair so bad trying to get to the young that the parents themselves have eaten the fry. since it sounds like it was their first clutch, I wouldn't rule out that possability in particular.

 

[TheCanuck]

lmao i had this pleco that ate gold fish! dont underestimate them lmao he was 15 inches long and sucked gold fish to death , dead serious

 

[Warborg]

Unless you saw the pleco do it, I believe the parents did it more then the pleco.

I've had many cichlid parents eat their own fry.

 

[loureyes]

I think the pleco or the parents could have done it. I had a ton of fry in a grow out tank and two weeks later I only have 30 or so and the only thing in there was a pleco filter intake was covered n everything. And cichlids will eat their fry too if they are under stress