OMG! Unknown fish in aquarium!

[Fredje]

Today I saw what looked like a tail of a 5" fish stick out of one of the holes in my rock decorations. I had seen this once before but it was gone by the time I got closer to it so I thought I was imagining things and that it probably was a leaf. Today I saw the same thing again and on very careful closer inspection, the tail turned out to belong to a big ancistrus I have never seen before. As you can imagine I was freaked out!!
My wife looked at me funny when I told her about it but after doing some reading on the interwebs we started putting 2 and 2 together, here's what must have happened:

About a month ago I bought my current tank second hand from a guy, we got rid of all the gravel and put the completely empty tank in my car. He gave me 2 rock decorations as well, which I thought looked rather nice so I put these in a plastic bag and drove home. Now I realize the whole time there was an ancistrus sitting in one of these hollow rocks the guy never told me about! The poor fish must have been at least 3 hours out of the water of which 15 minutes in the freezing cold!

I guess the ancistrus almost only comes out at night (perhaps due to a red tail shark in the tank) which is the reason it took me so long to discover. I'm a little worried whether he gets enough to eat, I do have bog wood in my tank and now put a slice of cucumber near the rock opening.

I'm intrigued now and want to see him! Any ideas how to lure him out during daytime?

 

[Oceangirl]

you mean a pleco. Put out some Algae wafers, cucumber, perhaps another member will chime in. I would only feed during the day and he will well be forced to come out and eat.

how big is your tank? Red tails get VERY big don't the?

 

[herp_mommy]

I too found a surprise fish. a 10" leporinus.

You could add some cholla wood or algae wafers to lure him out. Blanched zucchini works too.

 

[Fredje]

Thanks, yes sorry the surprise fish is indeed a pleco as far as I could tell.
The tank is 50G, the shark is about the same size as the pleco.
Will try to feed the pleco a zucchini, or as they say here feed the ancistrus a courgette

 

[Cynic]

I too found a surprise fish. a 10" leporinus.

You could add some cholla wood or algae wafers to lure him out. Blanched zucchini works too.

Haha that's akin to finding a wolf in your dog yard! Sure it looks awesome but it's going to end poorly!

 

[Fredje]

I too found a surprise fish. a 10" leporinus.

10" surprise fish?? Your story sounds better than mine, let's hear it!!

 

[herp_mommy]

Well I bought a used 110 gal. After we drained the tank, I moved some large rock and he flopped out. I quickly put him in a bucket, and was going to take him to the Lfs but I guess the stress got to him because he didn't last long after that. Was quite the surprise.

 

[FreshwaterForever]

To lure the pleco out you can use blanched zucchini and cucumber or algae wafers, as the members above said. I think that plecos prefer to feed at night but I'm not 100% sure.

 

[Rivercats]

I always feed my pleco's after the lights are off and blanched zucchini is by far the favorite of mine.

 

[shellyx]

+1 with rivercats, my plecs are always fed when lights are out. Mine love blanched cucumber, spinach, algae wafers & shrimp pellets.