Pleco in the HOB!

thrak76

thrak76

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May 31, 2009
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I came home this morning and went to check on my tanks per routine.
16g was fine. 29g was fine. 5g was fine... no wait! Where's my pleco? I am a recent recipient of a juvie albino bristlenose pleco, and he was nowhere in this tank!

I panicked.

Did the cats get to it? Not possible. Did i suck it up with the water change? No way, i'd notice that for sure. Did it somehow manage to get into the filter? Through the intake? Well... turns out it did. But i imagine that it just sucked it's way up the lip of the "waterfall" back into the tank of the HOB. CRAZY!

Has this happened to others? My quick fix for this was to stretch some nylons over the lip. When the water exits, the nylon bulges, and appears to bar the entrance (or exit!) to the tank.
Anyone else have a clever solution?

S
 
I don't have a HOB, but my biocube has a waterfall pretty much over the entire back wall, and I had danios going over all the time. I siliconed some plastic craft mesh on, which has completely solved the problem. It basically just raises the height of the wall, but the water cal still flow through it.

You can see the bottom of it in this picture: (the plants are much taller anf hide it now :) )
DSCN0535-1.jpg
 
My juvie is in a quarantine/grow out tank for now. When it "graduates" to the bigger tank with a canister filter w/attached biowheel i hope it doesn't manage to to get up in the biowheel. I just don't see how it could. Never know though...
 
only creature i've ever had go for an impeller ride is itty bitty baby snails, so i don't know about plecos going up into the filter via the output/waterfall, but i agree that leaving the water level just below the lip of the filter would solve the problem. might want to put something over the intake tube too, just to be on the safe side. a cube of filter sponge works great (and makes an awesome pre-filter!), just shove it onto the end of the intake tube after cutting a bit of a tunnel part way down the middle of the sponge.
 
My BN pleco does that all the time. Don't worry, they don't get hurt.
 
I found a small pleco dried out on the glass cover last week, apparently it missed the water on the return trip frm the hob.
 
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