Mystery Plec Death

[sloth1984]

Hey all,

Came home from work today to find my 'Leopard' Plec dead (i'm almost certain it aint a leopard plec but thats what they were sold as in the lfs ).

I have included some pics below (hope they aint too big for people to see, apologies if they are) as i was wondering if anyone had any ideas about his demise?

He wasn't off his food and seemed to be swimming around quite happily when he wasn't hiding.
I'd had him for about 3 months now and he was about 3 inches long.
There hadn't been any sign of disease and all my water stats are as they should be, plus all my other fish seem perfectly happy.

I realise that fish just sometimes die, but I was wondering if any of you had any ideas as it has come as a bit of a shock?

Many thanks for any help you can give in advance.

 

[WILDER]

Bless him R.I.P. can't tell from the pics what happened, sometimes they just die without any symtoms sorry.

Is that finrot on the top fin can't tell, was it like that before death.

 

[Bloo]

When was your last water chance ?
Have you introduced anything new to the tank recently ?

Doesn't look like any finrot to me Wilder.....

 

[sloth1984]

Thanks for your quick replies, muchly appreciated.

My last water change was Tuesday night and I haven't added anything new to the tank in over a month which is why I was a bit puzzled.

I kinda reckon he just died as well as there were no symptons that I could see, I just thought i'd ask incase someone with more knowledge had any inklings.

Wilder - Yes the top fin has been like that for as long as I can remember, i agree it does look a bit strange but i think its because its dead and out of water.

 

[WILDER]

Right if it's been like that a while i could of been bacterial finrot.

 

[Bloo]

I still don't think there's anything at all wrong with the dorsal fin If it was anything bacterial, it definitely would have spread in three months and other fish would have been affected too.

 

[sloth1984]

Yeah thats what I thought bloozoo and none of my other fish have any fin rot at all.

Just have to put it down to natural causes I guess.

Thanks for replying anyway bloozoo and wilder, it's much appreciated.

 

[WILDER]

That's fine just wanted to make sure, as the fin didn't look right, don't no if it was because it was out of the tank.

 

[anvil63]

This is completely anecdotal, and may be absolutely wrong, but I was told years ago to always have some wood in a tank with plecos and it would help with their survival. I was told this years ago on a site after having a couple of plecos die in succession after reaching about 5". I added some normal driftwood and some "malaysian bogwood" for variety and haven't lost any plecos since( except one from an over aggressive oscar that killed everything in his tank including a 6" pleco and a 5.5" syno eupterus).


Carl