who's chewing my goldfish tails off???

My guess would be one of the plecos....what kind do you have and whats there size in relation to the goldfish??

coffeegurlo said:

I have a 75 g tank with 7 goldies (black moor, blue oranda, and white/red orandas, 2 plecos, 4 small cory)... yesterday, when i went to feed my fishes, i noticed that someone chewed my black moor's tail OFF... :mad2: the whole back tail is gone... and so he couldn't swim properly and eventually died...


Could my pleco's be nawing on his tail? or are the others goldies the prime suspect? I haven't noticed and extreme bullying between them...


please help... thats so sad to see.... :help:

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I don't recommend pleco and goldfish sharing the same tank. Experts told me that goldfish are slow swimmers and pleco sometimes mistaken goldfish's slime for algae. Sounds disgusting but may be true. Some algae that plecos eat do feel slimey.

Take both plecos out now!

Do you have a spare tank/hospital tank?

Maybe you could seperate the pleco for awhile...to figure out if that's what was causing the tail problem.

Plecos!

I wouldn't just go suspecting the plecos, people.

What are you feeding the plecos? If they are not being fed properly, then it's possible that they may have done the deed. However, IME the pleco would be more apt to attach to the fish's sides, not its tail. The side is a far better target and it IS a sucker fish. I just can't see them chewing off a tail.

I'd suspect another goldie. If the fish was sick to begin with, and you may not have realized it was sick, it's not unusual for other fish to turn on it.

You don't have any comets or "unfancy" goldies in the tank?

All that said, I wouldn't keep plecos with goldies, and not because of the tail issue. They produce as much, if not more, waste that a goldfish does. So, in essence, you have 9 goldfish in a 75g and pretty much overstocked.

Those goldies really should have more than 10 gallons per fish and they don't even have that because of the plecos and cories.

Roan

Did you actually see the plecos doing this? What were you feeding them? Plecos do not do stuff like this unless they are starving.

Roan