I have an 18 inch pleco, I believe it is just a standard run of the mill pleco, that seems to like sucking on my other fish. He especially likes my south american red tail(only about 11"). He ha sucked two rather large spots of skin off my red tail right down to white flesh.I don't want to get rid of him but it seems like I might have to. I just put them in my 265 gallon tank along with 5 gourami(around 8") , 3 oscars(6-10"), an african clown knife(15"), an albino clown knife(around 11"), a royal clown knife(around 9"), a marbled bullhead(around 9"), a red bellied pacu(around 16") and 4 other plecos ranging from 5-8" in size. Now he harrasses everyone that sits on the bottom, be it an oscar or a clown knife. Should I get rid of him???
Pleco is sucking the skin of other fish!!!
- Thread starter jhutch
- Start date
Take the pleco out.. He will suck the slime coat..and ur fish will get infections.. and die from it...
Guess ill just have to get rid of him then. I have 7 tanks and I can't put him in any of the big ones. Thanks for the input.
yea hes lacking proper "nutrients in his food" or not getting enough and turning to your fishs slime coat for them. lol. not funny i know. Ya got to get him some food, algae wafers, or some shrimp pellets,
I feed hikari algae wafers in large quantity. Although I have noticed that he has some serious competition from my red bellied pacu. The Pacu is around 16 inches long maybe slightly bigger and eats a good 25 or more wafers in one feeding so maybe he is cleaning the wafers off the bottom before the plecos can get to them? The other plecos seem to be doing just fine. They are all quite big and don't appear to be malnourished. The large pleco also skims the surface of the water when I feed flake food so maybe he isn't getting enough food. I don't want to over feed them but at the same time I am big on not underfeeding either. Should I mix it up and throw some shrimp pellets in for him or will the pacu eat all them too???
with the pacu in there it IS SO HARD TO FEED BOTTOM DWELLERS!! they eat everything. personal exp. i had to move my RTC out of the same tank because the pacu would eat everything, same problem your having. Pacus are really good at finding food to no matter where you try to hide it for the plecos, lol or catfish. you might just have to rehome the pleco
its funny my oscar and pacu fight over the food, lol. push eachother out of the way. I live in syracuse NY, i see you live in penn yan, how far is that?
its funny my oscar and pacu fight over the food, lol. push eachother out of the way. I live in syracuse NY, i see you live in penn yan, how far is that?
Penn Yan is maybe an hour. I've driven to liverpool and thats about 40 minutes. My oscars don't have to fight with the pacu because the oscars eat cichlid gold floating pellets and the pacu won't touch them unless they sink and I feed a lot of live fish for the oscars and knifefish. My RTC won't touch anything but live food so there isn't much competition since the pacu won't touch the minnows very often.
