Bizarre Loss

[black hills tj]

I had 3 ABN plecos in my 29g community tank that were nearing maturity. The past couple days I have only seen two of them, so this evening I moved some things around. Unfortunately, it appears that the third has disappeared somehow. There are no remnants of it. I searched my filter, and there was no carcus/skeleton. The only thing in the tank that would attack it, is my koi angel, but they have lived in the same tank for the entire summer. Until this point they have basically ignored each other.

My theory is that while I was off at college(45 minutes away) the angel killed the missing BN pleco. Since I am gone monday-friday, this would give the snails and any other hungry scavenger a chance to dispose of the corpse. Quite unfortunate indeed, and I think I'll be removing my other 2 ABN's. IIRC, angels are natural predators of the BN pleco, but I thought they'd be alright since they have been co-existing just fine for a while now. Live and learn I guess.

On a good note, the two remaining plecos do seem to be a male and a female.

Thanks for listening

Mike

 

[neilanh]

Don't be surprised if it turns up, those things are great at hiding. My rubberlip pleco I go weeks at a time without seeing him.

 

[black hills tj]

Don't be surprised if it turns up, those things are great at hiding. My rubberlip pleco I go weeks at a time without seeing him.

I may rescape the 29g tank today, so I will post up if I find the little bugger. He may be hiding really well and fanning a group of eggs. How cool would that be?

 

[jrp1588]

How big was the BN? I've got a 2" rubber lip and my angels, even the big daddy angel, has never even looked at him wrong.

 

[black hills tj]

I would say between 2-3". My Angel has never even glanced at them, so I really don't think it was the angel. My angel is the only thing large, and possibly aggressive, enough to do damage to any of my fish. Which kind of throws that theory out the window, but its not impossible.

Maybe he died of some weird natural cause, and the scavenging crew took care of him while I was off at school. Hopefully he is just hiding very, very, very well though.

 

[jrp1588]

I wouldn't be surprised. When my 29gal was densely planted, I once went 3 months without seeing a single one of them, I had 4 in there btw. It actually turned out that I didn't see them until I tore down my 29gal and transferred everything to my 75gal

 

[Johnny Tuttle]

In my 21 gallon, I can't find my otos or shrimp for the plants myself, and I often have trouble finding my apple snail.