Gold Nugget Pleco

[jaywings19]

Okay... I'm trying NOT to freak out here!

I just bought a Gold Nugget Pleco (2") a few days ago. This fish was temporarily housed in my Eclipse System 12 tank.

This tank only has a small bridge-like decoration, some grass-like (fake) plants, and one smooth stone. As most of you probably know, the Eclipse Tank has a fitted hood with no openings.

For the past couple of days, the GN could either be found underneath the bridge... or suctioned on the tank walls... sometimes laying on top of the gravel.

However... as of tonight... THIS FISH IS GONE! Nowhere to be found. I just did a 50% water change... and removed the bridge... nada zippo nothing! This pleco just upped and disappeared on me. And yes, I checked the water change bucket to see if I syphoned him out.

I scoured the floor all across the room where the tank is located (a lot of open space) and nothing!

Where the heck is my GN

Stupid question... but do plecos in general dig themselves underneath the substrate? That's the ONLY thing I can think of at this point.

I feel like such a bad parent who has lost his/her child!

 

[jaywings19]

Good lord... I found him... he crawled into the filter output slot. Planted himself right underneath the biowheel. The only way I spotted him was the tip of his tail sticking out of the water output slot.

I have the piece of mind to give that fish a spanking.

Sorry for the false alarm everybody... but that has to be the scariest thing I've ever encountered in fishkeeping so far!

 

[NinjaSmurf]

First I want to say I'm glad you found your GN, and second your story had me and my mom laughing sooo hard.... We feel for you!

 

[jaywings19]

First I want to say I'm glad you found your GN, and second your story had me and my mom laughing sooo hard.... We feel for you!

Thanks! I can laugh about it now that I'm re-reading my post(s). But let me tell you that I was feeling downright awful about 30 minutes ago.

 

[NinjaSmurf]

Nothing like a missing fish to get the blood pumping... specially when you know it was there a minute ago. We've had it happen before, but our tale didn't end so lucky, we found a dried up eel under the recliner beside the tank.

 

[bshockstubb]

I was gonna say that he suction himself on the underside of the bridge(another thing to laugh about is the advertisments that appeared at the bottom of the page"Golden Nugget Casino")

 

[Angry_Platy]

Reminds me of when I got my clown loaches....I would check the tank every morning....to one day find only one (out of three)....searched to no avail then started blaming the cat (if the fish had escpaed the cat would have eaten it for sure)....

Then I saw splashing coming from the filter....there they were....having a grand old time in the filter!!! Could've killed them....and they were less than impressed when I removed them back into the confines of the tank....they kept doing it till I covered the entry points with a flyscreen mesh (the filter was a HOB so they couldn't get access to any moving parts but anyway)....I still hear them now trying to launch themselves in the filter to only bounce off the flyscreen!!!

 

[adcs]

Our Khulii Loaches do this all the time! They'll get in the filter through the water inlets and if I try to cover them over they just find another way in somehow. For months I was convinced that they had died and somebody had eaten them or something, but they always pop up somewhere.

I've given up trying to keep them out of the filter. The way I see it, they can't hurt themselves as the moving parts of the filter aren't accessible to them, so I may as well leave them to it.

 

[GP]

They make great hiders. I wouldn't even worry if you couldn't find him for weeks or months.