I've heard people say that plecos will suck the slime coat off of some fish, such as angels. I've never had this happen. Is this a myth? Has this really happened to anyone's fish?

Thats an interesting question "pooh". I have never seen it done either.

Hopefully someone has pic of it if it really happens.

It is true. I have heard of it, and I have a friend who saw it happen to her fish.

I think it is generally a risk with weak or sick fish, but I've never seen it happen in any of my tanks.

I DID see a chinese algae eater attach to a blood parrot once! Those are nasty little fish!

Kim

Do you know what kind of pleco it was, and what the circumstances were? Was the pleco being fed regularly, was it a sick or healthy fish that it attached to?

Common pleco, and it was attached to a relatively sick fish, it didn't help its healing process.

-Joel

That would make sense,,,a sick or slow- dying fish would be more "slimy" than healthy ones. idunno

Common plecos get pretty big too,,,maybe when it "lashed" onto the sick fish it couldnt break away???? Hmmmm

I'm with Kin re "Chinese Algae Eaters." They should instead be sold as "Chinese Blood Suckers"!

I have never had it happen with plecos, but I did have a farlowella that harassed my discus. Also I had bought a batch of ottos that were harassing my discus too...I had many ottos over the years and never had it happen but this batch were terrible. Someone said it was probably the population of the collection point that acted tht way. The discus weren't sick either when the farlowella or the ottos were attaching themselves. It didn't stop me from putting plecos in the tanks with the discus. Well farlowellas are a type of pleco but they look so different I just don't think of them as plecos.