Magic Pleco?

[LittleFoot]

So a couple of months ago I bought an albino bristle nose pleco. He was little, maybe 1.5 inches, and put him in my 40 to grow him out. He was happy, always munching away on the driftwood, and then a couple of weeks later he just vanished without a trace.

We broke the tank down, inspected all the holes in the driftwood where the loaches hung out, looked everywhere, but he was nowhere to be found. We picked up a new one shortly thereafter and that was that.

Fast forward about a month.

We came home today and saw something moving around in the big rocks in our 46 bowfront, which is strange because the only thing in there is a Jack Dempsey. We moved some of the rocks around, and low and behold, it's our missing pleco. What the heck!?!

When we set up the bowfront, we had to do it in a hurry because the JD had beaten the tar out of our oscar and they had to be separated. We took one of the HOB filters from the 40 gal to get the tank seeded, other than that everything else in that tank was new. He had to have gotten into the filter somehow, but I can't figure out how he got in there, how I didn't see him when I took it apart to move it, and how on earth he lived in that tank for 4 weeks without me seeing him!

Has anyone else had fish disappear and then reappear in a totally different tank or had plecos somehow climb into a HOB filter?

 

[alLexX]

hah! thats awesome,glad hes ok

 

[Andy91]

This makes me wonder if that is where my pleco went....... I have looked everywhere for it with not trace of it for about 2 months now but now this is making me wonder that it is in my hang.... lol!

 

[LittleFoot]

HA! I can't tell you how crazy it made me when I couldn't find him. I took that whole thing apart too when I moved it. He must have wedged himself in there somewhere because there's no other way he could have gotten to the new tank. (Unless he can fly) I keep checking to make sure he's really in there (and that I haven't gone totally nuts), and it's def. him, albeit slightly larger. Lol.

I'd check your HOB really thoroughly, apparently plecos are magic.

 

[JoeyGeeze]

Now THAT is crazy!! That's awesome that he is alive and well. My kuhlis got into my canister and I did the same, searched everywhere, under rocks, drift wood, etc. Found 6 of them in my canister, they were in there for 3 days! Haha 5 of them survived. Fish are tricky little creatures apparently!

 

[Tetra1990]

yep. I had a striped peacock eel. I would see him out at night when I would feed him. Soon I started to see him less and less. Than, I didn't see him for two weeks. Ok, I sifted through all my gravel, checked my decor, nothing! Looked into my hob filter and on the floor, not a sign. I just wrote him off as a loss and figured he died and decomposed into the gravel. I decided to switch to sand one Sunday. So I drained and took everything out of the tank, plants into a bucket and decor into a dry rubbermaid. 3 hours later after everything was set back up, I walked into the room and in front was my eel!!! Unfortunately, he passed away during the next night. But he was out of water for 3 hours!