Two mysterious deaths

B

bill

Guest
we woke up this morning to find a dead firebelly(2.5") and a beached clown pleco(2"). they were fine last night. we have had the firebellys and pleco mixed for 3 weeks and they have been fine together. the 10 gallon tank included 2 firebellys and 1 pleco. we found the firebelly in the water on the bottom floor and the pleco dried out in the firebelly's spot on the plastic float. the bigger firebelly(3 1/4") is fine we quaranteened for now until we can figure this out. the water temp stayed at a consistant 70 degrees. there is a under gravel filter, more to keep the water mooving without much current than anything. they get a 12/12 light cycle. any ideas if this is territorial? a bad choice of tank mates? or if anything was intraduced into the water?
 
It probably has to do with the mixing of species. The reason behind how they died, I have no idea. But it is very likely related to the species mixing.

3 weeks is a very short time. So perhaps it is just about time for them to adapt to the envirionment and start dealing with that unidentified creature that they are sharing in the same home.
 
that's kinda what i was thinking. they seemed to take to certain spots in the tank and the litle firebelly did go in the pleco's spot earlier that night while the pleco was wandering. is it possible to mix them with other types on newt with out a negitive effect?
 
Plecos are very dangerous to newts because of their spines and also because they like to suck on amphibian skin. Read through this (search for "pleco" if you want):
http://www.caudata.org/cc/articles/Mixing_disasters.shtml

Newly-aquired firebelly newts are often in bad shape from the pet shop, so there are many reasons that the newt could have died.
 
i just don't understand how the pleco got on the float and dried up... u would think they are smart enough to stay in the water.
 
well. probably lot of things happened. Maybe something the newts did that freaked it out and jumped out.

How about this scenario,

The newly imported newt died due to import issues. And the pleco scavenged around and ate some fleshes of the dead newt. And then the Pleco felt sick from some poison and jumped out as it struggled against the poison....
 
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