What the heck did I catch?

[DrewFlu33]

They are tough as nails also....I tore down my tank once when I moved...As I was netting the other fish..my pleco must have got scared and jumped out of the tank and I didn't see it....it landed behind the table I had my tank on..on a Hotrod Magazine...I found it about 30 minutes later...stiff as a board...dropped him back in the water and he swam off!!!!must have had him for another 3 or 4 years...

Can confirm! Similar story, though not quite as "dry" and over a much longer period.

I had an aquarium that I'd had for YEARS. There was an angelfish in it the was at least 12 years old. One morning I woke up to find the tank empty, my 12+ year old angelfish laying dead on the mostly dry rocks. The tank had sprung a leak overnight. I was pretty disappointed about that one.

I flushed the angelfish and sort of forgot about it. A few days later, I purchased another aquarium with plans to start again. I set it up, and started scooping rocks from the old into the new before adding water. It was at this time that I was reminded that the angelfish wasn't the only fish in the other aquarium, and that in my disappointment over losing that fish and my old aquarium I forgot about that. I found the pleco I had in there under buried a layer of rocks, still a little damp. I dropped him into the toilet and was just about to flush him when he started swimming around! I fished him out, and he lived for several years in the new aquarium.

[fishhead399]

It's a pleco, had this one for the last 12 years .bought him about an 2 inches long now he's almost a foot

[fishwest]

They are those little bitty sucker catfish that you see in aquariums. They get big and people dump them in creeks and lakes. They flourish in power plant lakes.