Pleco going nuts with replacement sponges

[Cardeater]

I installed two replacement sponges last night. The bottom one was falling apart and I was worried fish might eat bits of it. The top one was a very fine sponge that took forever to rinse out.

I noticed last night that the pleco was trying to knock it down.

This morning he managed to push bottom part off .


I fell back asleep and woke up to this. Too sponge floated away.


He keeps pushing and sucking on bottom sponge contraption. He also managed to displace two pvc pipes and knocked out another prefilter behind that.

What's his problem? I guess he's done this before when I installed new filters or sponges as he's pushed filters off in the past.

Maybe there's some chemical I. The new sponges that's attracting him?

 

[Rocksor]

it's in his swim lane

 

[Cardeater]

it's in his swim lane

Those sponges have been there for at least a year. Only change is i swapped out these sponges for two new versions of the bottom sponge.

Just to be clear since it's not visible in these pics, there's a power head drawing water through these sponges on top.

I'm hoping sponges will be harder to move once the air is completely out of them.

I just didn't expect him to completely displace everything.


Edit:
Now that I'm awake, I've been watching the tank. Pleco hasn't left area of the sponge. Almost constantly messing with it. Not sure what to do bc I imagine he'll knock it over if I fix it.

 

[Cardeater]

So like an hour and a half later, he's still sitting by or on sponge. This pic gives a better look at his carnage.

He keeps pushing it or sucking on it. I guess I'll try putting it back together again but I imagine he's strong enough to push it over again.



Edit:
Trying again. It feels like the power head is tighter on the sponge so we'll see what happens. As you can see even me messing with the tank there didn't deter pleco from hanging out next to sponge.



Edit x 2:
Just as I'm posting, he started pushing sponge tower. I suspect if it's tight enough, he'll eventually give up.

 

[FIU Panther]

C Cardeater

That looks like a giant loach in post #3. Any more pics of her?

Sorry about the annoying pleco, I hope for your sake he eventually gets bored, lol.

 

[fishhead0103666]

Have you considered zip tying the parts together? No pleco in the world will be able to undo a zip tie, chew through it perhaps but not undo it.

 

[Cardeater]

Have you considered zip tying the parts together? No pleco in the world will be able to undo a zip tie, chew through it perhaps but not undo it.

That's a good idea. Doesn't look like I'll need to do it though Moving the power head down seems to have tightened things enough so he can't knock it over.

Pleco seriously was addicted to messing with the sponge. Earlier I'd drop food by him and he'd ignore it over the sponge.

Finally, after going to the gym, he seems to have calmed down for now. I've seen him hang out at other areas of the tank, though he still goes back by the sponge periodically. We'll see tomorrow morning if he managed to knock it over again, in which case I may have to consider other options of securing the sponges.

 

[Cardeater]

C Cardeater

That looks like a giant loach in post #3. Any more pics of her?

Sorry about the annoying pleco, I hope for your sake he eventually gets bored, lol.

Two years ago, he kept knocking down the intake pipe of the new Aquaclear I added. Someone suggested putting filter pads behind the intake to prevent him from pushing and that worked.

Yeah, my big alpha loach is in that pic. I call her "Mama Loach". Had her and another , smaller male loach that I call "Baby loach" and the pleco since at least 95-96.

Here are two recent pics. One has very dirty glass.



Here's a thread with some other pics:

How tall PVC pipe cave for clown Loaches?

I saw my big alpha Loach scratched herself trying to squeeze into this old decorated cave so I'm taking it out and replacing it with one of those PVC T things. What diameter would you get? I have one in there but not sure what size it is. I'd estimate my biggest Loach is 8-10" and has good...

www.monsterfishkeepers.com

 

[Cardeater]

I guess things are back to normal. The sponges are still standing this afternoon. Pleco is no longer obsessed with the sponges. He's hanging out in other areas of the tank like he used to before I changed out the sponges.

Clown Loaches are back by the sponge. They had cleared out when pleco kept knocking it over.

 

[Cardeater]

Just found a dead panda Garra. I didn't mention it yesterday but I thought there was something wrong with one of them. One didn't appear as active as the rest. Like when I dropped food by the panda Garra, he didn't move toward it like they normally would and didn't move much when clown Loaches came by.


I speculate that maybe he got injured when sponges got knocked over or tried to go inside the power head intake.

I lost a rainbowfish to swim bladder three weeks so now I wonder if there's something wrong in the tank.

Edit:
I'm gonna test parameters and water change when I retrieve the body. I don't test often but might as well see if something is up on the test. I know I lost bio filtration with removing the sponges but there should be enough BB in the other filters plus I didn't feed heavy yesterday after water change