Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I finally got a pleco for my tank. Now I'm thinking maybe it wasn't such a great idea. My turtles seem to leave the pleco alone but today I saw one of them bite his tail. My turtles are only 2 inches big and the fish is probably around 4.5 inches. He likes to clean the turtles and he kinda pushes them around a lot. Can he hurt them by sucking too hard on their shells or something like that?
I also have a hard time feeding the pleco because the turtles always beat him to the food. I got him the shrimp pellets that sink to the bottom of the tank. How can I make sure he gets enough food? I can't let my turtles keep eating his food because I already had to put them on a diet. Any advice would be great.

Thanks

It is possible that your pleco could injure your turtles and it is likely that your turtles will injure or eventually kill your pleco. No plant or animal is safe with a turtle. You could take your turtles out of the tank to feed them (in a rubbermaid or something) and feed the pleco in the tank when they are not there. Just a thought. Good luck!

What should I do with my fish? I guess he needs a new home.

I had a similar issue come up. In my case my pleco didn't care about the turtles, but the turtles liked biting his tail. In my case though my res's where maybe 1.5 inchs and the pleco was closer to 12 inch. His tail was as bigger than the turtles. I finally took the pleco out because of stress he was under. Ironically the same turtles run from the cichlid in the tank thats not much bigger than them
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0.0.2 Res
0.0.1 False map Turtle
1.1.2 Leopard Geckos
0.0.1 Bearded Dragon

I have donated unwanted fish back to the pet store, they will just sell it again.