Lost One Of My Plecs.

[PlecMama]

One of my plecs died. I noticed the water looked a bit off on Friday night so Saturday morning I cleaned the tank, took out about 30% - and there, under one of the rocks that holds the branch down was one of my plecs, he'd obviously jammed himself under a bit and then died - hence the no-floating-on-the-top-looking-dead thing.

Yuck.

Wonder how long he'd been dead?? Trouble is with plecs, they are quite often hanging about on the bottom under rocks or wood, not moving. I wonder why he died? didn't seem to be anything wrong when I looked at him. The other four look fine and don't appear to be acting strangely.

I don't expect you to solve this, I was really just wondering out loud what could have happened.

 

[xingumike]

You possibly touched on it Suzi, maybe there was a squabble and he went to flee, in doing so got trapped under the rock? Was it one of the smaller ones by any chance?

sorry for the loss

 

[jollysue]

Sorry, Suzie.

 

[smithrc]

gutted

My parents lost a female BN and didn't notice (it got caught in some mesh holding some mature media)

Dead plecs can seriously mess up the water conditions - and quickly too.

 

[PlecMama]

Yes is was one of the smaller ones, but by smaller I mean 8-10 inches. Either Bonnie or Clyde, I can only tell them apart when I compare the colours, and since I can't do that anymore, I just have to decide which name I want to keep I s'pose

Poor old thing, I wonder if he/she was running? the tank seems pretty calm, no fighting (no spawning either) and no other casualties recently - though I wouldn't be at all surprised if I lose a few cories over this since I have no way of knowing how bad the water was and they hang out right on the bottom. Cories seem so fragile, whereas the plecs are like tanks, I am very surprised one of them died so suddenly, if he'd got stuck, I would have thought he would have thrashed his way out but I guess they don't have the biggest brains, he was maybe trying to force himself forward instead of reverse? Poor old thing.