Pleco poison?

[Nik]

I have an Oscar that has eaten the head of it's tank mate which was a 3" pleco.

Ever since the Oscar has been static and holding his mouth open.

I'm sadened to loose the pleco but will be gutted if the Oscar dies from his ver active appetite!!?

Why should an attack on a pleco cause the near or approaching death of my Oscar?

Help!

 

[Flippin'thing bit me eye]

Thats like eatin' a chicken bone, Plecs have got fairly spikey gill plates and are pretty boney on the head also.
Try the heimliech manouver.

 

[cryosi]

sorry to hear but if the oscar is a lot bigger than the plec or other fish then they should not be in the tank! That plec was a small meal to the oscar and i know oscars can get quite big, so i would suggest keeping only tank mates that can handle their big size!

 

[Nik]

The Oscar is 5" and the pleco was 3" and they had been happily co-habiting for the last 2 months. Nevertheless point taken and if he pulls through his next tank mate will be considerably larger.

 

[CFC]

Oscars seem to have a liking for plecos a friend of mine had his eat his golden nugget plec with almost disasterous consequences.The plec stuck out its spines and wedged its self in the oscars mouth,by the time he got home the plec was dead and the oscar had spines penatrating through the upper and lower jaw.He had to use sissors to cut the plec out of the oscars mouth and remove the spines with zweezers

It might be a idea to remove the oscar and check inside its mouth to see if there are any bits of plec stuck inside.

 

[Nik]

CFC

Thanks for the advice. Have had Oscar on the work bench and cranked open his mouth but couldn't see anything that shouldn't be there.

Since I registered this topic his mouth has slowly started to close. His behaviour has improved and I think he will make a complete recovery. I guess he may have irratated his mouth or gullet when taking the head off my plec!

I have learnt a lesson here - no pleco is too small for a hungry Oscar!

 

[impur]

It takes awhile to digest all that bone. Could have just been a slow process. Glad to hear hes better.

 

[freshmike]

sorry....all i can do is giggle....pooor oscar!

 

[cryosi]

NO you mean poor plec!