Any ideas why....

[sassy_oc]

Hi

(Please bear with me, im new to tropical fish keeping, so my terminology may not be up to scratch- plus I'm blonde!) I recently have set up a tank (3ft long- no idea how deep or volume- maths was never my forte!), i cycled it for 4 weeks without fish, then added 5 danios, i left them there for 2 weeks, and everything seemed fine, i took a sample of the water over the weekend to my local aquatics shop, they tested it and said it was all good, so i added 5 neons and 3 gupies, along with a single erm- ) (forget the technical term for this fish- its the one that attachs its self to the glass and sucks! im know this is shameful- but ive got lots to learn!) anyway, this morning, i found this one dead at the bottom of my tank. it seemed ok before hand, and could see no obvious signs of disease. Is this a common occurance with this type of fish, does it need more attention then the others or some specialist food? i simply have no clue as to why it would have died. can anyone throw some light on it?

thanks in advance for any help/ advice you can give me.

Sarah

 

[xXMrBonesXx]

well the fish that sucks the glass is a pleco and they eat algae wafers although mine have been starting to suck up the shrimp pellets i put in there so if you were just putting in fish flakes it probably died of starvation (if thats the fish that died)

 

[Vip]

I dont think it was starvation, ive never fed my pleco and ive had it for over a year. They do eat flake as well as a whole bunch of other foods. My guess it was a Bristlenose catfish, im guessing it was very small as well because i had (When i used to have liveberers) a bunch of mollys and the rest and they killed it. How bigs the tank.

 

[ryan]

Its sounds like a Pleco or form of Algae Eater, I certainly don't think the other fish killed him. If it was a Plec did you check its stomach before buying? If so did it have a sunken stomach area? Plecs do need indivdual feeding in community tanks as algae and left overs isn't enough for some species, you should feed algae wafers/bloodowrms and depending on the species most likely have some bogwood. I think we need to ID you fish first, try a google search under Common Pleco, Gibbiceps Pleco, Chinese Algae Eater and Otto, these are the fish most commonly sold fish that would suck on the side of the glass.

 

[wetwetwet]

Do you have your water readings? If not then get some test kits, very useful especially when first setting up a tank and adding new fish.

As ryan says, but would also advise mature tanks before adding any plecs with a bit of algae growth and also include some bogwood. Also search under bristlenose to try an ID the fish...



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[corrosive]

My aunt has two plec's and she feeds them on a number of things including cucumber with the skin taken off, and they love it.

 

[sassy_oc]

Thankyou for your replies.

Ive checked and it was the Common Pleco as suggested. I did have my water PH checked before i brought fish and i was told it was all fine. I dont think it died of starvation as I had literally had it for just over 24 hours. The tank i have is 3ft wide, and is second hand, along with the gravel- it had been used as a fully functioning tank for several years before i aquired it, so is mature. When i pulled it up from the bottom of the tank, there was a guppie attacking the corpse, so could they have killed it? I did not examine the stomach.

Thanks again

Sarah