pleco suicide

I believe you said your tank was acrylic?Keeping Plecos in an acrylic tank is not the best idea.They will rasp right into the acrylic causing scratches that will fill with algae and then you will never get it out.And,they will inadvertently eat and digest the acrylic which leads to gastric distress and other problems.Just some food for thought.Good Luck...
 
i once put my bristlenose plec in a large 10g bucket of tank water while i was sorting some new bogwood out and i didnt want to squish him, he was repeatedly rasping his way up to 6" out of the water up the side of the bucket then dropping back in again. i heard the noise 3 times before i saw what he was doing, very odd.
 
Yea I've seen smaller pleco's do this but bigger ones tend to be to heavy to hold themselves out of the water. Pleco's I've noticed dart to the top of the water then back down to get some more air. Sometimes they dart to fast going up and hit the glass but it's not an escape there trying to make. I had my big pleco jump out while I was at work through a gap smaller then the pleco. Keep in mind there strength if you got gaps since a squick pop could compensate for the lack of space.

Acrylic tanks are not good for some pleco's but not all. Panaque's are a no no along with any carnivorous species. Hypostomus and Pterygoplichthys and Ancistrus have all been kept in acrylic tank successfully without problems. Depends on the family of pleco in question and various species in certain families
 
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