# Bristlenose Pleco burrowing?



## Citizen Snips (Jan 6, 2010)

Is this normal? 20 gallon long with about 1-3 inches of sand distributed along the floor. Cavework and large center driftwood with dense plant life. I haven't seen my pleco in the past 2 days, but my tank doesn't smell and I haven't found a corpse it's as if he warped out of the tank.

Could there be a chance that he is just chillin out under the sand? I read most places mention they only burrow to mate and/or spawn but he isn't a female and he's also the only fish in the tank currently.

Anyone got an idea?


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## hXcChic22 (Dec 26, 2009)

I don't know about a pleco burrowing in particular, but I had a similar situation with our Dragon Goby. He had never done it before and one morning I looked all over and under everything in the tank, and he was nowhere to be found. 
I hoped that he had just buried himself, rather than jumped out and our cat finding him. Luckily, we went out that evening and when we came back, there he was, just chilling like nothing had ever happened. Since then, he keeps digging craters in the sand so I figure that's where he was. 
Have you checked under everything or tried stirring up the sand a little?


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## Citizen Snips (Jan 6, 2010)

No a lot of the rocks are stabilizing a large rock creating the cave. Moving a lot of things around could cave it in or uproot a lot of the plant work already set in the sand.

I did notice one stalk of watersprite floating as if it had been uprooted. I would much rather have a living burrowing pleco than a got-stuck-under-a-rock-and-died pleco, yanno?


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## Citizen Snips (Jan 6, 2010)

Hm, I think I have my answer... 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSyoCWTqJPQ

anyone ever see this?

He's pretty much been hiding for 3 days now.


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