My pleco, Aquanought, is eating adult guppies WHOLE! What can I do to deter him? He gets enough algea. I put the betta in thee to eat the babies and he doesn't. Instead, the pleco eats the adults... Help?
What species is he? And how big?
Not all plecos eat only algae, some are carnavores
Is he a common pleco?
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I heard that common plecos catch and kill smaller fish or suck the slimecoat on my other fish, is this true?
The only way that this would ever happen imo is if the pleco was starving and desperate. They will most certainly feast on a dead fish or even a dying fish given the opportunity but this is true of most fish.
Common pleco eat small fish. When we had a common pleco he killed and ate all the fish in the tank with him from tetra's to our young angelfish. We then put him in a 30 gallon with young goldfish and he killed and ate them. Common pleco's also require a lot of space. We sold him eventually and he lives with big freshwater fish in a massive tank.
Only a select few species of pleco are algae eaters throughout life. Most of them eat algae when they're little, and become piscevores (fish eaters) later on in life. I had a common pleco almost take out a moor goldfish's eye once. That was before I'd heard of this.
If you want an algae eater, I'd recommend bristlenose plecos.
Yes, this is why my common pleco is in a tank all by his self. He was attacking my dads other fish and I had a spare tank so he came home with me. They need a lot of filtration too as they are mega poo machines. My dad was keeping him with too many other fish including other algae eaters which I think is why he was attacking the others. Commons can attack because they are territorial as adults too.
Pygmy pleco sounds like a petstore name, I'm not finding ANYTHING on that species. Can you get a picture of your pleco? I might be able to find out more information for you, if I could see what it looks like.
All plecos will suck on the glass. It's not always algae eating, they evolved that mouth from living in fast moving rivers, so they'll suction to the glass and just hang out. Our albino longfin bristlenose chews the driftwood, and cleans our resin root, but she'll hang out on the glass all day long.
stinking pic is sideways but there he is. He eats all the algea tablets that i give him, eats the algea that grows in the tank (has been moved before to clean a tank of an algea infesttion before). he was baught at walmart 15 years ago i am told (belongs to my grandmother but i take care of him). He never ate guppies before... he leaves the betta alone.
That's a small "common" pleco. Which is one of a number of species. All of them are omnivores or carnivores. With a ton of water changes as a juvenile, that fish would've topped out around 2 feet!
P.S. that's the same species that tried to take my moor's eye!
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