A few weeks ago, I moved a 4" pleco from my cichlid tank to the community tank (it had a 10"pleco in it) seemed like all was well, then this morning I found the little guy on the bottom of the tank, dead as a door nail. The past week I have not seen either one of them eating. All fish are ok, tests are good, fish look good. I wonder if he starved?:(








sorry, please move topic to f/w. tx

Hey Lin ~ sorry to hear about your loss.

How long have you had the little pleco? From reading a lot of people's experiences, it does seem as though many plecos prove themselves to be extremely tough and live forever, while another one can barely handle even small issues. I'm also wondering if you acclimated the little guy to the new tank? Even if every test result you have indicates that both tanks share the exact same parameters, we don't test for everything so perhaps that was a problem if, in fact, you did not acclimate it.

As you allude to, your pleco isn't going to thrive upon, or even eat every type of algae and so they often starve even though there is an obvious abundance of algae. In fact, as many plecos start reaching adulthood, quite a few of them start to rely less on algae and become scavengers who live off of uneaten food and other detritus...which could explain why your larger pleco is still going strong. Point being, you could be right about the starvation.

One again, your right on the mark Tommy. I plopped him right in the tank:(