Miracle! Brillo rises from grave!

[Alien Anna]

Hi Everyone - I'm so happy!

Brillo the Bristlenosed Plec has risen from the dead. I had thoroughly cleaned out the tank, removed all the rocks and bogwood (looking for his body) and found nothing, except a few crushed "bones" in my filter. Last night, while snail hunting, I could have sworn I saw the distinctive shuffle of a Brillo fish at work but decided it was my imagination.

Then, later, I decided to surprise the snails and came downstairs in the middle of the night. I turned the light on and there, in the middle of the tank, was Brillo, in all his ugly glory. He ran away and hid as soon as I went near the tank, but this time it definitely wasn't a hallucination. Goodness knows where he had been hiding! I suppose the "bones" were actually calcified bits of snail shell (I have very hard water) or something like that. Something has obviously spooked him since I've been away because he's beyond shy, but he is at least alive and as far as I could tell with that brief glimpse, well.

I'm still bummed about the mollies, guppies, gourami, pencilfish and betta I lost, but there was something special about Brillo.

 

[Kossy]

Good for you man...

I have a similar story I also was going snail hunting and I couldn't find my female betta she always had a habbit of gettign stuck behind the filter. I couldn't find ne way 2 days later I spooted her behind the filter at the bottom I decided to move the flter She was still alive and as soon as she got out she started eating any food she found. I was sooo ahppy.

 

[William]

Congrats glad to hear he's still around, plecs are tough creatures but even still

 

[CFC]

Is he the only bristlenose in the tank? If there is more than one then you may be expecting babies soon.I have a pair of bristlenoses in with my predatory fish to help keep the algea down,i know it sounds awful but they are cheaper then putting L number plecs in in case they end up as food but are bigger then SAEs and ottos,common plecs and gibbys destroy plants too much.Any way some months back i was certain that the male had been eaten,i emptied the tank and searched hi and low and there was no sign of him so i removed the female to another tank.Sometime after suddenly all these baby bristlenoses started turning up,most of which were promptly eaten on sight but i managed to save a few,"ah thats nice hes left some offspring before he got it" i thought.Then one evening while doing the same as you,the dreaded weekly snail removal,i saw what appeared to be a bristlenose hiding behind the giant vallis,"no it cant be" i thought,it was.Where the bugger had been hiding i dont know but there he was right as rain tucking into a piece of lance fish that the other fish had missed.
Well the female is back in with him now and theyre both still alive and happy living with the big preds,bristlenoses really are one of the hardest little fish ive ever known.

 

[AquaNut]

Yayyyyyy *waves arms in the air and does my best Kermit the Frog impersonation* So nice to know you didn't lose that special fish

 

[gadazobe]

I think everyone that has a plec or bristlenose has a story like that. It's good hear that they all turned up alive and kicking

 

[smb]

I'm glad to hear he's ok.

It always amazes me when I hear all these stories of plecostomus "disappearing" for a week or 2 only to be found like this out of the blue. Those buggers sure can hide pretty well.

 

[Dragonslair]

Hi Anna,
It's lovely to hear from you again. I have been wondering where you've been hiding all this time. Probably you've been doing a Brillo.
Well it's really lovely to hear from you again, I've missed our conversations together. BTW I've been looking for your website. Do you still have it on-line?
Look forward to more of your posts. Now there's two of you resurrected back to the forum. You and Rose.............Happy Days!!!!

 

[Dragonslair]

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