Dead pleco

[Guyb93]

My green phantom pleco is dead .
If you have never saw two plecos fight to the death , it’s a shocking experience
No warning signs no chance to stop it just amazingly decisive in there actions ,
Do not keep mix species of pleco together they don’t care about dominance or territorial disputes ,once a pleco has decided it dose t want to share there’s no stopping it , put it this way two oscars tried to escape the all out brawl my plecos had . Effectively bashed to death , even its dead body was being mutilated before I could remove it .... pleco death fight , not fun

 

[Slaphppy7]

My green phantom pleco is dead .
If you have never saw two plecos fight to the death , it’s a shocking experience
No warning signs no chance to stop it just amazingly decisive in there actions ,
Do not keep mix species of pleco together they don’t care about dominance or territorial disputes ,once a pleco has decided it dose t want to share there’s no stopping it , put it this way two oscars tried to escape the all out brawl my plecos had . Effectively bashed to death , even its dead body was being mutilated before I could remove it .... pleco death fight , not fun

Wow....sorry to hear about this...and the fact that you witnessed it is even more distressing

Good lesson for all of us

 

[Guyb93]

Wow....sorry to hear about this...and the fact that you witnessed it is even more distressing

Good lesson for all of us

I watched it happen , they had never displayed any agression towards each other but within a minute of them starting to fight one was dead , I’m used to fish agression with cichlids but that’s somewhat easy to spot and sort out , I had no chance of saving this fish .. this fish didn’t want saving either it wanted to fight to the death over a shrimp , if anything the green phantom was the aggressor ... and the loser , so sad but also so educating

 

[TwoTankAmin]

This really is all territorial. More space and caves spread out will normally prevent what you saw. It also allows one to drop in multiple pieces of food around the bottom so the fish need not meet and fight over it. I breed Hypancistrus and they they will sometimes take it to death. One male will trap another male in a cave and not let it out until it has died. Plecos are prettyfish but they can get nasty over sharing food, caves or females.

Usually fights will end before death with the one who is the loser running away and hiding. If there is not adequate cover and trhings which break up sight lines, running away may not work.

 

[Guyb93]

This really is all territorial. More space and caves spread out will normally prevent what you saw. It also allows one to drop in multiple pieces of food around the bottom so the fish need not meet and fight over it. I breed Hypancistrus and they they will sometimes take it to death. One male will trap another male in a cave and not let it out until it has died. Plecos are prettyfish but they can get nasty over sharing food, caves or females.

Usually fights will end before death with the one who is the loser running away and hiding. If there is not adequate cover and trhings which break up sight lines, running away may not work.

I would agree but this is a 5ft 500l tank , there’s multiple caves and spaces for them to avoid each other , it was over a prawn and my fish are fat not even well fed they are over fed if anything , most shockingly as soon as the common killer the phantom it started to eat it from the eyes .
I’m just baffled truly baffled

 

[TwoTankAmin]

Dead fish are food for almost everything else in a tank, other fish, inverts and even plants.

In general in your tank where did the two plecos each claim space and hopefully a cave? Bear in mind that in nature fish can flee to get out of sight of others. in a tank this can be less possible. Pit of sight means out of mind. If the agressor can not see where the opponent flees to, then it cannot chase it down and continue the fight. Those dang glass walls get in he way of being able to flee very far.

 

[Emyn9]

My green phantom pleco is dead .
If you have never saw two plecos fight to the death , it’s a shocking experience
No warning signs no chance to stop it just amazingly decisive in there actions ,
Do not keep mix species of pleco together they don’t care about dominance or territorial disputes ,once a pleco has decided it dose t want to share there’s no stopping it , put it this way two oscars tried to escape the all out brawl my plecos had . Effectively bashed to death , even its dead body was being mutilated before I could remove it .... pleco death fight , not fun

I’m soooo sorry it must have been a terrible experience (

 

[Guyb93]

Dead fish are food for almost everything else in a tank, other fish, inverts and even plants.

In general in your tank where did the two plecos each claim space and hopefully a cave? Bear in mind that in nature fish can flee to get out of sight of others. in a tank this can be less possible. Pit of sight means out of mind. If the agressor can not see where the opponent flees to, then it cannot chase it down and continue the fight. Those dang glass walls get in he way of being able to flee very far.

The common didn’t really have a cave that it claimed it aimlessly wondered around looking for food , the green phantom had a cave and it was its pride and joy the biggest and most central of all caved right underneath the flow of the filter, the green phantom was the aggressor by far the common was happy to share the prawn but nope the gp had to try and bully the slightly larger common and it backfired very very fast ... in the end the Oscar ate the prawn because the fight just became a priority, i will never keep plecos together again

 

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

I'm really sorry about your pleco, that really sucks! Especially witnessing it and not being able to stop it, with it happening so fast.

 

[Guyb93]

I'm really sorry about your pleco, that really sucks! Especially witnessing it and not being able to stop it, with it happening so fast.

One of those things I guess , iv done things that are destined to fail that have succeeded and sure things fail , but honestly it’s something I wouldn’t try again , regardless of the information and experiences I will never keep two plecos in a tank again , I have never witnessed such ruthlessness form a fish before . It’s chanhed the way I look at plecos in general

 

[itiwhetu]

Sorry to hear this, how big are these fish? They must be large to be in with the Oscars.

 

[Guyb93]

Sorry to hear this, how big are these fish? They must be large to be in with the Oscars.

The green phantom was 6 inches the common is around 7inches , the green phantom was a lot stockier than the common as it was just more mature . The GP was female I’m pretty confident it was a she , so am I to assume the common is also a she or would a male fight with a female regardless of gender

 

[TwoTankAmin]

Plecos are territorial. A threat to their territory will provoke a response. And then plecos in groups develop pecking orders as do a number of other species. As the large size plecos grow, they want their territory do do so as well.

Next, any individual fish can have a different attitude as to how it deals with things. I see this in my spawns starting years back with bristlenose. I would get a spawn of maybe 25 fish (this is only for new spawners, my longest held pair had over 100 fry in their final spawn.)
because bn are so prolific grow tanks are a necessity. But this gave me a great opportunity to observe them.

What I saw and developed my own theory about was this. When feeding time came around it was a free-for-all. And the fish that were the most determined and willing to fight for the food usually got the most. I also noticed that some individuals were not very aggressive in this melee. I also noticed different growth rates. Clearly the most aggressive feeders grew faster. But it was what followed which interested me.

Because BN are so prolific, I need to sell/trade/give away fish to prevent serious over crowding. So my practice was to offer the biggest kids for sale first. And this would thing out the ranks which remained in the grow tank. The smaller plecos would often be what we like to call "runts of the litter" were not that. These were kids which did not want to fight as hard or even at all for food. This became more obvious as brothers and sisters got bigger.

And one day a light went off in my head. Some fish simply do not want to get beaten up. So they appear to be making the active choice not to fight. But as the larger fish were removed I noticed the so-called runts began eating more and that made them put on a growth spurt. They would catch up in size with their siblings. When all was said in done they were not runts.

I have seen vids from the Rio Xingu showing plecos and there are rarely a bunch of adults all hiding together. Below are two vids of plecos in the wild. Notice they are not coming out or being caught in groups.





In the case in this thread I think it was the personalities of the two fish combine with the size of the tank which resulted in the situation. There simply are times when an encounter is going to produce the result seen rather that it being anything abiut the general nature of plecos. The winner of this fight got what it waned- to be the "king" of the tank. It is not rocket science to think if I kill my competition everything is mine.

One final observation. In my first tank of breeding zebras all of the spawning was done by two individual males. But, the larger of the two was not the alpha male. Even though it had a bit of a size advantage, the actual alpha male was simply tougher. Fortunately, I feed well and provide tons of cover. So I do see fighting now and then but it rarely results in death. Note I said rarely and not never.



edited for typos and spelling only

 

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

I have seen vids from the Rio Xingu showing plecos and there are rarely a bunch of adults all hiding together. Below are two vids of plecos in the wild. Notice they are not coming out or being caught in groups.

Wow, this second video especially is incredible to watch! The way he's going in there, bare handed and pulling out pleco after expensive pleco, then wedging them through a slit into a plastic bottle...! And the note at the end that in one dive they can collect 400 plecs...!

This tank is yours? Wow! Really showing why people love plecos! The variety is incredible, and some are huge beasts!! The one on the glass that's mostly black but with really long extensions on his tail edges, what species is that?

 

[Rocky998]

Wow... That is insane and must have been scary to watch. So sorry this happened.