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?
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?