Help/advice On Our 14 Year Old 8" Pleco And Tank Size...

[Curiosity101]

Don't move the gravel until you move him. As I said earlier... no ammonia source and the bacteria die. So move the gravel to the new tank which just has water in (and no ammonia from a fish/pure household ammonia), and that bacteria will pretty much have all died within the next 24-48 hours.

And you might also end up with a slight spike of ammonia and/or nitrites in the plecs current tank whilst the bacteria multiply back up to the correct numbers to maintain it at 0.

 

[feag]

Ok I got you now! Making more sense. Had to re read your last reply few times to get it! But have now. I think reason we didn't want to take his old gravel out orig was because of daft reason, its blue and new stuff stone coloured and then thought we wld put it under new stuff but of course if moving at same time its got to be put on top of new gravel, which is fine thanks so much for taking tine to explain it all..

 

[sinie]

shame i have only just seen this,
i have a 300l juwel tank and stand up for sale that would have been perfect for you, and at a decent price, it currently also houses a 14" leopard plec, hes a beautiful plec, but is slightly to large for my juwel trigon 300,
so if anyone is after a tank, and or a large healthy plec, drop me an email,

mike

 

[feag]

Not sure if this post will go to everyone that helped us with my questions on our Pleco, Charlie.. I hope so as wanted to let everyone know that he is now in the bigger tank! he went in Saturday.

We left the new filter we bought to put in old tank for 6 weeks in end and then moved it over to the new tank (which had been on with the water heated etc for weeks) and then moved Charlie over - in a box - he did freak out a little but swam out easily into the new tank and seemed to investigate it well over the next few hours.

We put quite a few bags of his old gravel in places around in new tank (in pop socks) so we are hoping that with those and this filter that had been in old tank for 6 weeks, is enough filter media to make new tank ok.

He seemed fine and then today (day after he went in) we did the API test and the levels were:
PH 7.6
Ammonia 0
Nitite 0
Nitrate 20

Now these seem ok to me, i know the ph level is rather high and im not sure how to lower it, but hand on heart and i am so guilty of forgetting to do this, but i didnt do a test on his old water first before we moved him, so i dont know what the ph level was. But a few weeks ago it was about 7.4 or 7.5 if i recall correctly.

So is this ok?

Now he obviously hadnt been fed which we have done so tonight so this will alter the ammonia levels i presume?

Can anyone advise what we do now? do we do another test tomorrow after work & see what the levels are then?

He seems to be quite active in tank this evening and loved the courgette we put in.

Hope we have not done anything wrong

Footnote: Tonight (mon) we did test again & levels were all the same apart from the NitrAte levels have gone up to 40ppm from the 20ppm it was yesterday.

When should we do a water change do you all reckon?

hope u r all well!!
jane