Turtle vs Pleco

[coseveni]

Hi all,

I'm hoping to get some advice on my turtle tank. I own a 40 gallon tank which is home to a yellow belly slider aquatic turtle about the size of a small lemon, a plecostomus (species unknown because when I first got them I was silly enough to just choose by the pattern I liked and the cheap store tag just said small plecostomus,) and several fish (gourmi, neon tetras, rainbow sharks, and a few others.) Just recently my pleco (who is about 5 inches,) has began to interact with the turtle. At first it appeared that the pleco didn't like the turtle at the front glass on the tank and seemed to maneuver itself to sucking on the glass anywhere the turtle was. I wasn't really concerned. But today, I noticed that the pleco was actually attempting to suck on the turtle. The thing that made me write the post was when the pleco attached to the back leg on the turtle, which was even tucked in at the time, and the turtle went crazy trying to get away. After doing some research I learned that some pleco's can be aggressive and now I am concerned for the turtle especially since it is the main feature of the tank. I feed the tank once a day. Plenty of algae sticks, fish flakes, and alternate between the dried shrimp and krill that come in the multi feed turtle package. Since the pleco has continued to grow in size all along I never really considered that it wasn't getting enough food. Last week I bought algae wafers after this glass battle seemed consistent. My questions to all of you are: What kind of pleco do I have? (see pictures) and Can this pleco potentially kill my turtle?

 

[bribo12]

That's a bristle nose pleco. Pretty harmless. Your turtle will be fine, if anything it would eventually go after the pleco. Plecos are usually aggressive to other pleco a.


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[ktomminello]

I agree, overall on the pleco aggressiveness- but I have a gibbie plec that is in detention tank buy himself for purposely attacking my rams and killing them. Keep an eye on the 2. Chances are they will be fine once the yellow belly realizes the pleco will stay away after a couple good tail nips. I have had pleco with my turtles before and have witnessed them attempt to graze on the shells. The only concern I have is the small size of the turtle and bacteria infection. Just monitor to make sure there's no signs of reddened skin or color loss and lethargy.

Hopefully your bnp (bristle nosed pleco) gets the message about turtles and their chomp before your turtle gets big enough to try to eat the pleco lol