Gibbicep Plec Help!

[jayneyt123]

I am new to keeping tropical fish. I have recently rescued a tank from an owner who didnt have time for them anymore. Having only kept goldfish upto now, i had no idea what the fish were that were in the tank. I always research pets before taking them on however I had little time to do this before the tank was brought to me. Now I have done some research I have realised that the 'dwarf plec' as the owner called it, is actually a gibbicep plec which I believe grow huge! This plec has been in the tank for 4 years and is around 5 or 6" long. Will it grow any bigger or will it stay small because of the environment? It is only a 60L tank. Also... yesterday we added some Domios I think theyr called, the pet shop owner said they would be fine in the tank with the plec, however instead of 6 we have woken up to 5 fish. Did the plec eat it? I could do with some help and advice! Thanks.

 

[sadguppy]

Gibbiceps will indeed grow huge. Are you able to take a picture, as there are some species which look similar, such as the bristlenose plec, which would suit the tank fine. If it is one of the larger species you need to rehome him as he will get stunted and suffer from poor health, and die

Do you mean danios? If so check behind the tank, they are notorious escape artists. Any hole in the lid needs to be plugged, even very small ones. If it died, it may have then been eaten by other fish, they wouldn't have killed him though, but its more likely it tried to explore the other side of the tank.

Which other fish do you have? Good luck with it and oh, if course welcome to the forums!

 

[jayneyt123]

Yes I do mean Danios! Like really small stripey and spotty fish that are really fast! I have had a look around the tank and the outside of the tank and cant find the missing fish

As for the Gibbicep... I have attached a pic. Sorry it isnt a very good one, I only have my iphone atm. His colours are amazing! A really beautiful fish.
If he really is a gibbicep I think I will have to find him a new home though .

I also have one black widow tetra which I beleive are shoal fish? So hes a bit nervous and hides in the plants, which is why I bought the Danios because I thought they would make him feel better. I have taken a japanese fighter fish and a silver dollar out of the tank and put in a smaller one because they look a bit worse for wear. The silver dollar has a cotton wool like ball behind its gill. Didnt want it to spread to the plec or the tetra as they both seem fine. The fighter fish, although looks pretty healthy, has scraggly fins which I thought might be fin rot. These fish were not very well looked after I have treated the sick fish with anti-fungi/fin rot medicine. The fighter fish may already be cured but I wanted to treat it just incase. The cotton wool ball looks like it has gotten smaller too idk.

And thanks for the welcome!

 

[sadguppy]

Eek you will also need to find a more suitable home for the silver dollar should he improve, they get huge!

Looks like a common plec or gibbi to me but on my phone so the picture is too small to say for certain.

It may be that the fighter was getting nipped, he may improve with good water quality. Is the tank you have put them in cycled?

 

[jayneyt123]

Right... it might be easier if I tell you what iv done since iv got them. The tank was brought to me last wednesday empty of water and fish. It was extremely dirty (i saw the tank before it was moved and the water was brown and had been like this for sometime I believe). The fish were in the dirty water in a lunchbox.

As it was late at night I tried to flush out most of the debree in the stones etc with the hose pipe but was a rushed job. I boiled the kettle and poured it over the stones to try and at least sterilise them a bit. It came with no working filter or a heater so they had been living in cold dirty water for a month at least. God knows how they had survived! Id taken them on because I felt aweful leaving them in the conditions I found them in (and as it was a family friend I felt I had to do something). After a rough clean out, I filled the tank with fresh water and a little from the kettle to warm it up to the temperature they were at in the lunchbox, added declorinator and some friendly bacteria. I then added the fish and left them over night. The next day I borrowed an old tank from my uncle, cleaned it out maticulously, and put the fish in that one with water from the other tank, while I sorted out their tank.

The tank took us all day to clean. It had algae and poo everywhere and even bones of fish/frogs that had apparently died and been eaten. I used boiling hot water to clean the stones and the ornaments. The tank looked brand new by the time id finished! I bought a heater, some plants and added an underwater gravel filter. I filled it up, added declorinator and friendly bacteria and left it for 2 days. This is when I moved the plec and the black widow into the 60L tank and left the silver dollar (which is really small ) and the fighter fish in the smaller tank. Then i switched the heater on the lowest setting and slowly turned it up to around 23/24 degrees over a day or two. The plec and black widow seem healthy to look at. I also cleaned the small tank following a similar procedure and added a small amount of methelyene blue (I had already used the finrot/fungi medicine previously). These fish seem to look better but I dont want to add them to the big tank if they are still poorly. Its all a bit of a mess really!

 

[sadguppy]

Well done on your efforts to save these fish.

Although they'll be going through a fish-in cycle at the moment due to the new filter (unless the friendly bacteria worked, mine didn't but I would be interested to know if yours does!), they'll be in a MUCH better position than they were and they're obviously tough so will probably be ok.

My advice would be to do frequent water changes and feed every other day.

Add some melafix to the tank with the betta and silver dollar or whatever anti-fungal meds you can get hold of and with plenty of clean water, they should do a lot better.

Good luck!

 

[coldcazzie]

Hi jayneyt123 and welcome to the forums

You've come to the right place for help. Well done for taking on these fish and wanting what's best for them.

You are now in a fish-in cycle. To understand this and how to get through it, please read here: http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?/topic/224306-fish-in-cycling/

Fuzzy white growth does sound like some kind of fungus, once the fungal med has taken effect, you can return the dollar to the other tank, but he should be rehomed as they get HUGE and like to be in groups. The betta (fighter fish) does sound like he's a bit worse for wear - lots of fresh water and good food will help his fins heal up - you can do that in the main tank though.

You would do best to post up a picture of the plec in our plec section - you'll get good ID help there, and you can then decide what to do with him. If he is indeed a gibby then he will need rehoming to a bigger tank. To me, from that picture, he doesn't look like a bristlenose, but I'm in no way a plec expert and other more experienced members will be able to help you on that.

Can you give us the exact tank dimensions of both tanks? I'd also recommend buying yourself a liquid test kit so that you can test the levels of ammonia, nitrite and nitrate in your water - this will guide you through your cycle and help inform your maintenence routine once your filter is cycled.

 

[jayneyt123]

Thank you both for all your help! I have taken a better pic of the plec and will post it on your plec section. The 60L tank is 24" long, 12" wide and about 15" tall. The small tank is 24" long but only about 10" tall. The fighter fish is looking better already and he has gone from a brown colour to a bright blue, but his fins arnt healing. Its the front fins that are the most scraggly. I will have to take a picture of him to show you what I mean. Just looked at the siver dollar (at least i think thats what it is? because its been in the tank 4 years and its probably the size of a £2 coin at the most!) and it looks like the cotton wool ball is bigger not smaller. Il have to get some more fungus/fin medicine and see if it clears up over time.

I will have a look at the link you posted on cycles because tbh it all sounds very complicated to me. I had a basic idea about keeping the nitrate/nitrite levels low as when I got my goldfish, id read about it when researching how to keep them. I also had my goldfish water tested and it was perfect! So iv never really gone into any more detail. I will definately be getting a water testing kit for the tropical. I just want to do the best I can to nurse them all back to health!

 

[coldcazzie]

Post a picture up of the possible dollar and we'll try to ID that too

Fins take a long time to heal - they don't grow back overnight. But there are a number of threads in the betta section showing the healing progress of fish who have had bad fins that have healed over time with nothing but clean water and good food so it can definitely be done!

As far as the cycling goes, I'll see if I can summarise:

- Fish poo/wee/respiration makes ammonia.
- Ammonia is converted into nitrite by bacteria in your filter, which is then converted into nitrate by different bacteria in your filter.
- Those bacteria are slow growing, so you can expect it to take about 6-8 weeks for the cycle to complete.
- In the mean time, any reading of ammmonia or nitrite above 0.25ppm is bad for your fish (that's where the test kit comes in).
- Therefore you change as much water as you can to remove as much of the ammonia/nitrite as possible, to get it as close to 0 as possible. You do that every day. Test, water change, test again.

 

[jayneyt123]

Right so I need to get my test kit pretty sharpish! That post you directed me to has really helped my understanding! Great for beginners.

Here is a pic of my 'silver dollar'. Its in the smaller hospital tank which has a blue tinge from the methylene blue I added.

 

[fluttermoth]

Thankfully, that's not a silver dollar. It's an albino black skirt tetra (they're sometimes called black widow tetras, and the albinos white skirts or white widows).

They don't grow big, but can be nippy towards other fish if they don't have enough of their own species to 'play/skirmish' with.

 

[jayneyt123]

Oh this makes sense as it does look like the black widow tetra thats in the big tank! Iv noticed just now that the black widow tetra is going pale and iv not seen him eat for a day or two. Do you think its ok? or is it just scared as its the only tetra? I dont want to add the other tetra if it has fungi in its gill, and i dnt want to buy more tetras because of the cycle thing.

Also... i think i need to buy another filter. The undergravel filter I have doesnt have any filter media. Its just a plastic tray and a tube with an airstone in it? What should I do?

 

[Louiseness]

The undergravel filter's media is the gravel you use above it.

They are old-fashioned now but they do still do the trick - but they also mean you can't clean your gravel very well, or change your substrate to sand or anything like that. They also aren't too great for growing plants.

Basically, the bacteria grows on the gravel as the water is sucked through it, rather than the sponge in a canister filter.

 

[jayneyt123]

Oh I see... I think I will have to find them a new home. At least I rescued them from cold brown water!

 

[jayneyt123]

Just to let you all know, the missing fish has turned up. Dont know where it had gone! I did a 10/15% water change this morning and it just appeared! Also I bought a nitrite testing kit and the colour chart says my aquarium is now mature and I can add fish. So I'm guessing that means it's good. It's looking like iv managed to save these guys. Thanks for all your help yesterday. Much appreciated!