Odd fish death

[Jamesr1985]

So me and my wife are new to fish keeping and we are unfortunatly learning throuh trial and error.... We are going to be picking up a water test kit soon.

But the question i have is about the highfin plecostamus
That we found dead with a giant hole in his underbelly we dont know who would or could have done it... We currently have 2 powder blue gouramis 1 red dwarf gourami (had 2 but one died earlier in the week) 5 tiger barbs 2 catfish (cant remember what kind) 3 whitecloud minnows and 3 fancy guppys

Our tank i think is 48gal and not sure about the water quality have som drift wood inside to create some spots to hide a small cave and a pinneapple house (i have kids lol) and some fake plants

[King Fisher]

Hard to say what caused it. Plecos are pretty tough. My advice at this point, until you get a water test kit, is to do frequent water changes. I'm assuming your tank isn't cycled and you have quite a few fish in there if it's uncycled. I'd do 50% water changes every other day....or 25% daily water changes.

[Jamesr1985]

We have had the tank running for 6 months now the plecko wasnt just dead but almost gutted and cleaned out

[King Fisher]

Ahh ok. Is it possible he died from something else then got eaten after death? The fish you have generally wouldnt full on attack, kill and gut a pleco.

[chemk]

So sorry for that.

[Jamesr1985]

So chaulk it up to he died and they ate him to keep bacteria down.... I hear fish will do that

[King Fisher]

Don't know about their innate ability to determine bacteria but they will eat at dead fish.