today i came home from work and found my plecos mouth had been sucked into my fx5`s intake pipe, he was dead,as you all now oscars like to play with thing and one of the games in my tank is take apart the filters, i often here a loud sucking noise(no penn it`s not!) when my oscars get go up to it and it sucks them in but i rekon pleco was hungry or murdered,

look at the shape of his mouth

x5

the bad fx5



if this was one of my o`s id be gutted but not to bothered about the pleco

more pics if anyones interested, rip bumhole!

So sorry for your loss hun! i have never had my filter come apart like that...

the plecos mouth looks pretty normal to me, they do have this protruding mouthpart so i dont think its abnormal...

however, coming home to find it stuck to the filter is... bad news really and I hope it doesnt happen to the oscars.. maybe you could put a protective shield around the inlet, didnt it have one on it whenu got it?

T

bottom pic is the inlet and the protective shield but not together!!


to t,t



if you seen it, it must of been a long slow painful death, poor little f83ker

Sorry for your loss.

It certainly looks like he got stuck on the inlet, however there is a possibility that he died and ended up at the filter inlet. I know that when i used to keep community fish that when one died it used to end up on the filter intake usually side on. How big is the plec and was it healthy looking wheb you last saw it

Your oscars look big enough not to get caught on the filter inlet however if you are worried then as said put a cover round it. To do this get u shaped piece of plastic and put lots of slits in it and use suckers to hold it in place

yeah the second pic doesnt look as nornmal as the first... not good either way really.. how do you think the pipe managed to get out of its protective shield, any ideas?

T

i do understand that most filter has a suction screen to protect the fish being sucked.
and the screen is so designed that any fish would not stock on it. more over, strong
fishes has the capacity to splash away from being sucked. i do believe that your plec
is already weak or dead when it stuck with the screen.

I agree with you Paul... As I have this filter and have never even had a 4 inch Pictus cat sucked to it... although he plays around it everyday... I have also never had the screen come off in this way... And my Oscars are massive... I think the plec was already really weak or dead.

and most plec will have snouting mouth when dead because it is no longer
have to power to sucking...relax laready...

Sorry for your loss, I to have clown loach that take pellets to the intake so it holds the pellet for them as they feed.(very clever fish yes?) I don't think the intake would hold a plec so my thoughts would be it died and ended up there. I could be wrong but thats what I would think. my pipe has never come apart so it could have played a apart in the problem. again very sorry.

Mouth looks ok to me too.