My wife's favorite fish is our bristlenose pleco in our 35g. It was our first tank, and he was our first real fish (other than the hardy fish we cycled with). His name is Poopy, because of the massive amounts of waste he creates 
When we were given a 75g tank, my wife's first thought was "let's breed bristlenoses!" That didn't really appeal to me, because there's so much you can do with a 75g tank. We both agreed on some larger fish than what we have in our 35g, and decided to do an Africian cichlid tank (haps and peacocks). One advantage to this was the ability to get another bristlenose for that tank. So on my wife's first day of her new job, I surprised her with a new bristlenose as a new job present She was very excited, and loves him. Problem is, in a tank like that, he hides a lot. We're lucky to see him every third day, and we just hope and pray he eats the algae discs we drop in. The cichlids seem to hog the algae discs, but we try to drop them in the caves he likes to hide in.
Tonight I was taking a look at all the fish, and I saw Big Poopy (he's bigger than the original) underneath a rock, laying on his back in the sand, not sucking on anything. He looked very dead. After telling my wife, and consoling her (she was crying), I started the process of getting him out. I started trying to poke him out of the hole with the net, but he kept sinking back into the hole under the rock, or so I thought. In reality, he was trying to avoid my annoying pokes and prods with the net... He was alive! I was amazed, he looked really dead. Now I want to get him out of there, at least for a while, and put him in the 35g. Hopefully he can get well fed, less stressed, and we'll see from there. My wife is just happy he's alive, even if it is just barely.
Anyone else ever had a similar experience with a plec or a bristlenose more specifically?
When we were given a 75g tank, my wife's first thought was "let's breed bristlenoses!" That didn't really appeal to me, because there's so much you can do with a 75g tank. We both agreed on some larger fish than what we have in our 35g, and decided to do an Africian cichlid tank (haps and peacocks). One advantage to this was the ability to get another bristlenose for that tank. So on my wife's first day of her new job, I surprised her with a new bristlenose as a new job present She was very excited, and loves him. Problem is, in a tank like that, he hides a lot. We're lucky to see him every third day, and we just hope and pray he eats the algae discs we drop in. The cichlids seem to hog the algae discs, but we try to drop them in the caves he likes to hide in.Tonight I was taking a look at all the fish, and I saw Big Poopy (he's bigger than the original
) underneath a rock, laying on his back in the sand, not sucking on anything. He looked very dead. After telling my wife, and consoling her (she was crying), I started the process of getting him out. I started trying to poke him out of the hole with the net, but he kept sinking back into the hole under the rock, or so I thought. In reality, he was trying to avoid my annoying pokes and prods with the net... He was alive! I was amazed, he looked really dead. Now I want to get him out of there, at least for a while, and put him in the 35g. Hopefully he can get well fed, less stressed, and we'll see from there. My wife is just happy he's alive, even if it is just barely.Anyone else ever had a similar experience with a plec or a bristlenose more specifically?
