Rip Nibbler

[KathyM]

hi you lot

sorry about the onehanded typing, i'm recovering from a coffee table related incident

just popped on to get some sort of clue what's happened. nibbler, our l190, died last night.

a while back now, we got an l191 off lisa who displayed very similar behaviour and died suddenly, so i'm wondering what your thoughts are.

both displayed these symptoms - a few days before death looking a little bit sunken, but not thin. then their bellies got normal again before it raised any concern. neither stopped eating. water parameters fine (0,0,30), no new fish. day of death, both displayed odd behaviour - sitting at the top of the tank with their noses out of the water. last night nibbler was like this, then as i went to turn the lights off, he was on the tank floor with ned the bristlenose attempting to eat him. obviously there's very little time between them acting this way and them dying, or we'd have attempted isolation, diagnosis and treatment.

no other sick fish at all, not even other sick plecs - all the others have been in with both and not displayed these signs at all (we have a hypancistrus, a clown plec and an ancistrus in there too). no signs of bullying, nibbler was in charge of the tank.

the l191 we put down to him being so bloody tiny when lisa picked him up, and maybe being weak. this theory cannot be used for nibbler, who was 4" and had been with us a year. both were eating fine up to the day of their deaths. plenty of bogwood in the tank, courgette for extras, spirulina wafers also.

if anyone can shine any light on this we'd be ever so grateful, we're devastated - nibbler is the only reason we've kept the tank going, he was my baby.

 

[stang1]

I'm so sorry for your loss Kathy.
I'm afraid I'm stumped as to what could have caused him to die but hopefully someone will have the answer.
I hope your arm gets better soon.

 

[KathyM]

thanks - hopping on the self pity boat for a minute, it's my shoulder, my neck, a couple of broken ribs and a battered knee lol - beware thems evil coffee tables!

as for nibbler and fry the l191, i'm thinking it might be something specific to them - it can't be specific to panaques in general though because the clown plec is as fat and active as ever. maybe the two deaths are unrelated, considering how long ago the l191 died, but they do carry huge similarities. i've written off water issues, as the tests are good and generally nibbler has lived through some heavy problems in our tank a long while back with no ill effects - our angels are normally very quick to pick up on anything bacterial, and two of them are currently breeding (we got eggs last night for the first time). cories are all well, they tend to be one of the first to pick up bacterial probs in my experience - them and the angels. if the two deaths are linked, it's either by circumstances running up to them (which i can't think of anything suspicious), or like i said, maybe something only those two are prone to. if it was something more major, i'd expect the less hardy fish to have picked it up, who are all as healthy as anything. if it was something quite generally or loosely plec-related, i'd expect the others to have picked it up, and they're all healthy as ever too.

I suppose that leaves constipation - it's fair to say there isn't as much panaquey poo around and he didn't poo yesterday, but i would expect him to have been bloated and for it not to have killed him this fast - he had courgette in too and was eating that the night before last.

it has me stumped, which is a shame because my first instinct was that i wanted to hop on a bus to leeds and see if i can find a nibbler junior. obviously we cant do that, and it'll be some time before we dare get another.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

awww sorry to hear that Kathy, poor little nibbler.

just a thought, it got really quite warm in leeds yesterday afternoon/evening and i assume it was similar over by you. could it have been aeration/overheating problems, some species/genera seem to be more sensitive to them (although i have no idea if the fish in question are or not)

 

[KathyM]

i honestly don't know, but he was a hardy little sod and has lived through a lot worse. i'm hoping the link between the two deaths is purely circumstantial and that it's down on something as simple and preventable as what you said. i wish i could know for sure because there's a huge royal shaped hole now. i'm a bit sad cos i blubbed like a baby over him. it's my 30th birthday on friday, and what a run of sh*tty luck we've had - not much to celebrate now.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

i honestly don't know, but he was a hardy little sod and has lived through a lot worse. i'm hoping the link between the two deaths is purely circumstantial and that it's down on something as simple and preventable as what you said. i wish i could know for sure because there's a huge royal shaped hole now. i'm a bit sad cos i blubbed like a baby over him. it's my 30th birthday on friday, and what a run of sh*tty luck we've had - not much to celebrate now.

I think your probably right that it's just a co-incidental link between the two. we all loose fish from time to time and I know how hard it can be. You just have to soilder on and things will get betetr soon.

Your not the only one having a rough time though, you can have a laugh at us cos although it's not been fun it's quite funny!

I got a throat infection which Ian then caught off me, we were renovating the bathroom and had the plasterer booked for the next weekend and had to pull down and re-build a stud wall in a week when we were both really poorly. Luckily I started to get better unfortunately Ian got a hell of a lot worse, his developed into a chest infection and he was struggling to breathe, even had the emergency doctor out he was that poorly. Anyway the weekend comes and we manage to get this wall pulled down and re-built on one side in time for the plasterer although it was agony, as you can imagine with a chest infection the last thing you need is manual work in a really dusty environment. Then on the saturday we start taking the tiling off the wall by the bath and the whole bloody wall collapses with it onto me and the bath, really hurt my arm and broke our bath. So scraped together what pennies we had and went to buy a new suite (wasn't part of the renovations in the bathroom we'd planned) got a cheapy one in B&Q as it was the only one we could take home that day. So got the wall re-built and plastered, everything seemed to be going OK, took the old bath out to the tip and then the new one upstairs to fit it, had it leant up against the wall to fit the feet and it slipped and broke as well! Honest to god we were both in tears, we'd spent every penny we had on it and now had no bath/shower and no way of getting one for a couple of weeks. So we spent the next couple of days commuting to bradford to get a wash at Ian's parents while raiding out overdrafts and credit cards and stuff to find the money for a thrid bath! In this time I hadn't been able to do much on the tanks and i realised that Oscar was getting poorly, only gone and got HITH from menot doing a few water chabnges. So had to find yet more money for medication and tiem i didn't have to do his maintenance and look after Ian and get the bathroom sorted out. anyway 2 weeks later we finally got our bath and got everything plumbed in and useable again. We're just finishing off the decorating now. Noticed the last week though that the marine tank wasn't looking brilliant, then realised one of our firefish was missing presumed dead. Checked the tank and the bloody skimmer had been knocked and wasn't working so had a panic sorting that out too. Oh and, just as Ian started to get better I caught this chest infection back from him and got really poorly again myself.

wanna wallow in self pity (and vodka) together ?

But there's always light at the end of the tunnel hun, it's your birthday soon and I'm sure you'll get some lovely pressies (and bloomin hell I'd haev never thought you were nearly 30, looking good for it!)

 

[KathyM]

i like the sound of wallowing in vodka. i can do without painkillers for a night for that. you sound like you've had as sh*tty a run of things as we have, so i think we deserve it lol. glad you got your bath sorted, not about to wallow in self pity and vodka with someone who smells. i'll tell you what though, you wouldn't be saying i look good for 30 if you saw me this week.

back on subject though - if anyone else is reading this and can shed light on it, that'd be great. it'd be good to know how long to leave things before considering another.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

not about to wallow in self pity and vodka with someone who smells. :

i'll not invite Ian then!

on topic - no specifics as you know plecs aren't my best subject. However my general rule for adding fish after a death is if it was unexplained and there are no further problems in the tank, water levels OK and no meds added that could potentially harm the bacteria I'd leave it 2 weeks before considering fish. If you've had a disease or treated with any meds leave it a month after resolution of the problem

 

[KathyM]

pmsl - wait til ian sees that, you're for it missus.

thanks for the advice, what you've said there makes perfect sense.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

pmsl - wait til ian sees that, you're for it missus.

computer at home's broken and he can't come on from work (on a building site, surprisingly) so he won't see this...... i can say what i like

 

[KathyM]

whehey!!!

 

[KathyM]

it's been suggested on another forum that poor oxygenation may be what made him sit at the top of the tank, so looks like you were right miss w it's bad enough losing him, but knowing it might be my fault is even worse

 

[§tudz]

Sorry to hear of your lose, I really hate it when fish die for no reason, I lost two bulldog plecs last year to unknown reasons, I have since replaced one of them and its been doing great with no probs at all.

As for the hanging at the surface I would go with the oxygen levels too, it could have been caused by many things from a small ammonia spike to the heat.
I am not a fan of air pumps and air stones, IMO they are noisy and not a requirement, well that WAS my view. Now I have a big tank I run air stones in it.
Basically as the tank is SO big I believe that the oxygen would take a long time to dissolve as the tank is 4x2x2'

I did think bacterial infection or a form of parasite, it may have been a gill fluke or such like, have you checked all the other fish over? as they may have the infection but not to the point that it is causing problems. A change in the tank may have given one fishes infection the chance to increase its population and cause problems.

I had a problem like that in my Polypterus tank, I thought it was nothing and turn out to be some form of leech/worm infection on my two P. senegalus, took me a few months to get it all cleared up. so if you have checked the other fish over throughly I would vote for that before adding new fish, if no signs of that, I guess a general tonic of some sort wouldn't go a miss? although I'd leave out the last option of the general tonic.

Hope your feeling better too, those coffee table are a pain, I got jumped by the one at my GFs house early today, it stuck its leg out in front of me and then smack my leg with its top. I got away before it could do anymore damage, but sounds like you weren't so lucky.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

it's been suggested on another forum that poor oxygenation may be what made him sit at the top of the tank, so looks like you were right miss w it's bad enough losing him, but knowing it might be my fault is even worse

awww don't blame yourself hun, it happens to us all from time to time, just have to learn from it don't you.