A friend of mine got a new heater for his tank and was :drunk: :joint: while he was setting it, I know - stupid, but he couldn't feel the clicks to set it. He woke up and says he smelled fish, his tank temp was about 110F (he said that it was almost too hot to put his hand in) and he thought that all of his fish were dead. He took out the floaters and was doing a major water change to get the temp down and remove the "death" bacteria and after he put a few gallons of cold water in the tank all of a sudden his sailfin pleco came pushing up out of the gravel, aparently fine, just overheated and pissed.
Is that typical pleco behavior? I thought they were more fragile than that.

nah, plecos are pretty hardy. the sailfin probably buried itself in an attempt to escape the heat. i have noticed that my sailfin will get itself in some rather peculiar spots but never noticed it bury itself.

Pleco's are catfish, catfish are much tougher than they are given credit for. I've never seen a pleco bury itself, however I have also never tried to boil one. ;)

I've never observed a pleco bury itself...must have been cooler in the substrate.


Well...Plecos are extreamly hardy.

The first 2 times I tried to have plecos did not go well, they turned into lunch for my kids goldfish, but those goldies were mean little :YELL:, they ate everything I tried to put in with them, plecos, snails, guppys, they even attacked my hand. They were pure evil!