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I was in Petsmart this past weekend to get some dog and cat food. The only place around that carries the brand I feed them. I saw what they had labeled as "rubber-lip" pleco. I know, never buy fish from Petsmart but it was the first time I saw one in person so I did. My LFS only "stocks" commons. It's only about 1-1/2 inches long. Unfortunately, I noticed its stomach is caved in like it hasn't eaten anything for a while. It's currently in a 65 gallon tank that has several caves/hiding spots, with a 5 inch common, some danios, and some corys. The rubber stays on top of the common's cave throughout the day. The common never shows any aggression to the much smaller rubber. I've had the rubber for around 4 days now. I put algae wafers in the tank every night around the cave but I don't know if it's eating any or just the common and corys. Since his stomach has been caved in for several days now, is there any way to save it or is it a goner? P.S. I'm going to try zucchini tomorrow evening to see if it'll take to it.

Hi tDONKEYi,

Yes I've seen the rubber-lip plecos at PetSmart before, and I have been tempted to buy them myself (except I have no open space in my tanks). Several of us have talked about PetSmart and Petco before, and don't worry, you're not the only person who shops for fish there; I've bought plenty of fish at PetSmart and only occasionally do I regret it very much.

Thinking of your question, my first observation is that, based on what you told us, you placed this new pleco directly into an established tank with other fish. My advice would have been to place the new pleco into a quarantine tank for a few weeks to observe it and to make sure it's healthy and eating well before adding it to the community tank. That said, you didn't, and now your fish is in the big tank and it needs to start eating. These are omnivores; you should offer your pleco a variety of foods, not just algae wafers. They may like the zucchini, but give them other foods too, including regular sinking pellets (or even live tubifex worms) like someone might feed the corys. Also, what's the temperature in your tank? The types of rubber lips I see at PetSmart don't like very warm water. Good luck.

Cheers, Eric

If you have it available near you, I recommend New Era brand pellets (I use ~2mm Tropical and ~8mm diameter Plec Pellets), they are soft food that can be pressed onto pebbles to help Chaetostoma spp. (Bulldog Plecs) adapt to hobby life (in the wild they graze algae covered rocks, trying to find critters that live among the algae).

Alternatively, look up "painting" pebbles with a mixture of crushed hobby foods and egg white. Let it dry solid for a few days before adding to the tank.

Quarantining Chaetostoma for a few weeks after purchase is more important than the average hobby fish, they can take time to adapt to hobby food even without competition, I've had mixed results even with a QT. My eldest Bulldog Plec used to belong to MartinS on here, he passed it over to me 4 years ago (I think!), since then I added two others ~2.5 years ago (a third one sadly never adjusted) and a C. dorsale ~1.5 years ago.

Mine neverrr eats algaewafer or vegs.. It only goes for protein (coryfood), frozen bloodworms, brineshrimp.
To me they defo are less vegetarian than they are thought to be.

I got my Spotted Rubbermouth,, who we named "Wink", at Petsmart. He adjusted much better than the two that I had gotten at the LFS. The first was tiny and never ate enough, the second somehow got jammed into one of my ornaments in the tank and it wasn't until months later when I'd removed the decoration that his little bones tumbled out .

"Wink" always charges right for the algae wafers when I drop them in. I have the Tetra "Extreme" wafers, Hikari wafers, different spirulina pellets, etc. I agree with N0bodyofthegoat, I really like the New Era plec pellets, they're huge but soft so you can smoosh them into a disc or roll them into little balls. They smell like spinach. I order them from www.drsfostersmith.com.

Wink also eats zucchini, peas and sweet potato.

I think you perhaps need to put him in a quarantine tank or a smaller tank with less competition. Wink rules the 10 gallon he is in . When he gets a little bigger he'll go into my 55 gallon catfish tank.