is this normal behavior

[CMC]

I bought a pleco about 4 days ago and put it in my cichlid tank. It is about 3-4" long. Yesterday I noticed it doing something strange. It attached itself to the water outflow part of the hanging filter (on the top outside of the tank). The pleco stayed wet because the water was coming out of the filter and running on top of him. I thought maybe it was trying to eat the algae off of it. It stayed there for about 2-3 minutes and got back into the tank.

Then this morning it was at the top water line with half of it's head stciking out of the water and then it started thrashing around like it was trying to jump out of the tank .

Is this normal behavior for a pleco? I had one a few years ago and don't remember it acting this way. There is plenty of algae and other food for it to eat so I know it isn't hungry. I tested the water this past weekend and everything is normal and the temp is 79 degrees.

Thanks!

 

[Tempestuousfury]

When talking to the pet care manager at Petsmart, I asked him if his hatchets ever jumped out and ended up in other tanks. He said that was a rare occurence, but they frequently found plecs on the ground outside the tanks. It seems to me that they either get scared at night (at Petsmart) or they try to gte out of the tanks. You might have an escape artist.

 

[CMC]

Speaking of escape artists, my son's fiddler crab apparently climbed out of his tank a couple of weeks ago. We noticed it on the outside of the tank on the filter a few times but it would always get back into the water but we haven't seen it in almost 2 weeks now. It's nowhere in the tank and we looked in and around the filter, heaters and tubes with no luck. It must be in my son's room somewhere all dried up and dead.