Tetras killed and ate my Pleco?!?

[GeoPesner]

Have a 60 tank with neons, black skirts, gouramis, rainbow fish, and various Cyprinids. Anyway last night I saw my Pleco doing just fine and have had him for over a year. He has never been sick or scarred or anything like that. I wake up and go to do a water change and find him on the floor as a bone dry Skelton!
Nothing but bones not even a single scale or piece of tissue. Can anyone shed some light on how some tetras could do that? Thanks

 

[Drstrangelove]

They can't.

 

[Zanson]

how large/what type of pleco? Im not sure that any of those fish could eat a whole pleco that clean in a single night. I assume your tank doesn't have a lid? could you post a photo of your tank? any other animals in the house?

 

[kno4te]

Strange. Sorry for the loss.

 

[GeoPesner]

how large/what type of pleco? Im not sure that any of those fish could eat a whole pleco that clean in a single night. I assume your tank doesn't have a lid? could you post a photo of your tank? any other animals in the house?

He was a 6 inch common Pleco I'll post some pics of the tank I have no idea what could do that. It has a lid and no other animals in the house to have done that

 

[GeoPesner]

Have a 60 tank with neons, black skirts, gouramis, rainbow fish, and various Cyprinids. Anyway last night I saw my Pleco doing just fine and have had him for over a year. He has never been sick or scarred or anything like that. I wake up and go to do a water change and find him on the floor as a bone dry Skelton!
Nothing but bones not even a single scale or piece of tissue. Can anyone shed some light on how some tetras could do that? Thanks View attachment 1257139

 

[GeoPesner]

Here is a picture of the tank nothing has changed and all parameters are good so I have no idea how a few fish can do that

 

[duanes]

Just because the pleco died, doesn't mean the other fish killed it, they may have eaten it after death, maybe.
There are any number of reasons a fish dies, and it doesn't need to be disease or being killed by others.
It could have had an unseen internal problem, a birth defect on a biological timer, or something simple like a piece of substrate swallowed.

 

[Drstrangelove]

Here's a you tube time lapse of dead fish decomposing. It was for 3 weeks and still was not bleached bone.

Here's an actual fish being eaten in a tank. It's still not close to a skeleton after 47 hours.

Another fish... in the ocean. Still not close to a skeleton after almost 4 days.




So, did a healthy pleco jump out of the tank and decompose in around 12 hours? No.

Did the pleco somehow die and get picked clean? Maybe. But then what? How did the skeleton get onto the floor? Did it's tank mates have meeting and decide to lift up the lid and then toss the skeleton onto the floor (without it the fragile skeleton breaking mind you)? No.

Too many things that defy biology, physics and common experience.

Didn't happen.

 

[Hendre]

My rosy barbs will eat a dead comrade clean in under an hour, but how in the world can a fish completely decompose over night or get killed and THEN go out of the tank. Doesn't sound right