Common Pleco

[smmetz]

can common plecos change color, from a dark brown to splotches of light brown? My wife is a little worried that our pleco is often seen with a pattern of lighter brown on it. I notice sometimes when he is swimming around the tank that the pattern is gone or less pronounced. Could it just be some sort of natural chameleon ability?

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Common pleco's will often go paler when they feel stressed, so you should check your tank and see if anything could be causing this- how many gallon is it and what is its stocking?

 

[smmetz]

Common pleco's will often go paler when they feel stressed, so you should check your tank and see if anything could be causing this- how many gallon is it and what is its stocking?

Thanks for the quick reply.

It is a 7" common plec we have had for almost a year. It is in a 55 gallon tank with the following:
3 spotted raphael catfish - about 4 inches each
5 platy - about 1.5-2 inches
6 rainbow madagascar - about 2.5 inches average length
1 bamboo shrimp
nothing new in many months as far as stock goes.
filtration - AC110 hob filter + a UV filter I installed last month after I lost 2 platy to dropsy. I plan to remove the UV filter soon - it is an ugly internal one.

I have not checked the water stats on that tank in a month or so, besided PH. I recently added a 2 foot piece of that fancy driftwood that sinks rigth away. It had soaked for 3 days. After 2 days in the tank, the PH dropped from 7.2 to 6.9. I normall don't test ph much, but was curious how much the wood would affect it.

I did a 15% water change the day I added the wood. I did a 15% change 2 days later. It is day 4 now. I normally do 15% water change per week. I have a sand substrate, which I vacum during each water change. I stir it up about once per month. Filter media has not been rinsed in about a month. I am using a sponge and the bio-things that came with the AquaClear 110 filter, no carbon for now.

I will check the amonia, nitrates, and nitrites tomorrow. I have the testkits at work right now. (have a 20 gallon in my office)

We had not given the pleco a treat in over a week, just algae pellets. Today we dropped in a nice piece of cucumber, and he ate quite a bit of it. Based on his pooping all over the place all the time, I dont think he was starving though. Unless it was all the raphael catfish, but I dont think so.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

When your fish died of dropsy, did you treat the tank with anything? Tank stats for ammonia, nitrites and nitrates will be helpful. Does this pleco have any caves in the tank big enough for it to properly take shelter in that are not occupied by other fish?
You should probably increase your weekly water change to at least 25% a week as doing too smaller water changes can sometimes bring on high nitrate problems.

 

[smmetz]

Thanks again for the advice.

I will check the nitrates. That tank has a history of nitrates getting up to around 20, based on my routine. If it has gone up though, I will increase my changes from 2 buckets to 3 buckets, and see how that does. (5 gallon bucket, filled to around 4 gallons each time) I try to keep my tanks below 20 nitrates.

When I had the dropsy issue(5-6 weeks ago), one platy was removed into a hospital tank, and the UV filter was added to the 55 gallon. The platy died the next day. I then took another suspicous platy out, into the hospital tank. It died in 2-3 days. I did not treat the main (55 gallon) tank, hoping that the other fish were not affected. I did a large water change, rinsed the filter media very well, and hoped the UV filter would slow the spread of anything. The other fish did not show any symptoms, so I have assumed I am in the clear. Perhaps that was a mistake.

Hiding places - I just took out 2 PVC things from the tank, when I added the dritwood. I almost never saw the PVC being used. Now that I think about it, I did also remove three fake plants that were looking really worn out. The pleco used to often hide behind one of them. Now that spot is gone. However, the 2 foot driftwood has some places it should be able to hide in. 2 of the 3 spotted raphael are still using spots on artificial driftwood, the other has claimed a spot on the new real wood. However, there are other places on the new driftwood where other fish can hide. The pleco now seems to like to hide behind a different fake plant in the tank.

The pleco seems to be behaving normally. I'll see if I can post a couple pics of it I took earlier today. I wont be able to post them until tomorrow though.