Save My Pleco

[matildadog]

I started my 30 gallon community tank about 10 months ago. We seemed to have a fairly stabilized environment up to about 5 days ago. The trouble started when we noticed white spots on our 2 black phantom tetras. We did some online research on ich, and bought an organic treatment from our local pet store. Since then, we've lost 10 of our 12 fish, some of which we've had since the very beginning. Our most mourned one, Fuji, was a platy who was born in our tank.

We only have two fish left: our pleco, Eugene, and and a little blood-finned tetra. We desperately want to save them, especially Eugene, who is like a member of the family! One of my most horrific nightmares came true the other morning when we found Eugene OUTSIDE THE TANK lying on the floor! We have a hood on the acquarium, but he had managed to shove past it and had fallen 5 feet to the ground. It looked like he was dead, but amazingly he survived. He is not looking good though. He seems dusty, discolored, parts of his scales are gone. I don't think he's eating.

According to everything I've read about ich, we shouldn't be losing all these fish if this is our only problem. I have tested the water daily, and the only thing that is abnormal is the nitrate reading, which is on the high side. My test strips do not test for ammonia, but a few days ago the nitrites spiked slightly. (Back to safe zone now.) I have added acquarium salts, ammonia block (just in case), bacteria... performed a couple of partial water changes, and continued the ich treatment... I just wish I knew what the problem was. Any advice would be very welcome.

Current temp 80 degrees (turned it up and removed carbon filter to treat the ich).

 

[ApolloJ]

I started my 30 gallon community tank about 10 months ago. We seemed to have a fairly stabilized environment up to about 5 days ago. The trouble started when we noticed white spots on our 2 black phantom tetras. We did some online research on ich, and bought an organic treatment from our local pet store. Since then, we've lost 10 of our 12 fish, some of which we've had since the very beginning. Our most mourned one, Fuji, was a platy who was born in our tank.

We only have two fish left: our pleco, Eugene, and and a little blood-finned tetra. We desperately want to save them, especially Eugene, who is like a member of the family! One of my most horrific nightmares came true the other morning when we found Eugene OUTSIDE THE TANK lying on the floor! We have a hood on the acquarium, but he had managed to shove past it and had fallen 5 feet to the ground. It looked like he was dead, but amazingly he survived. He is not looking good though. He seems dusty, discolored, parts of his scales are gone. I don't think he's eating.

According to everything I've read about ich, we shouldn't be losing all these fish if this is our only problem. I have tested the water daily, and the only thing that is abnormal is the nitrate reading, which is on the high side. My test strips do not test for ammonia, but a few days ago the nitrites spiked slightly. (Back to safe zone now.) I have added acquarium salts, ammonia block (just in case), bacteria... performed a couple of partial water changes, and continued the ich treatment... I just wish I knew what the problem was. Any advice would be very welcome.

Current temp 80 degrees (turned it up and removed carbon filter to treat the ich).

Don't Plecos tend to jump out of the water when something's really bad about it? or so I heard...as to your fish continuosly dying, it reminds me of myself when I started the fish keeping hobby, they just kept dying til' I finally got a community that survived for over a year now, includes Plecos, another thing as you know...you gotta make constant water changes, for that a Gavel vac is a must.

 

[matildadog]

We have a gravel vac, though we did get a bit lazy about the water changes.

 

[ApolloJ]

We have a gravel vac, though we did get a bit lazy about the water changes.

Heh..I know how that feels, I got many things going on that I sometimes forget...but it's kinda necessary, so I try not to get lazy with it to avoid more deaths and disease, also this topic should be in: 'Tropical emergencies', I'm not much of an expert, so there's other people who can give you good suggestions there.

 

[LauraFrog]

What did the white spots look like? Sounds to me like it could have been more serious than ich (ie columnaris) which has spread and flattened the fish. What symptoms did the fish show before they died?

Also, what medication are you using and what's in it?

Loss of scales, lethargy etc. sounds like side effects from being on the floor. Irritant medicines are definitely not a good idea - need to know what's in that medication so we can advise. Are there any signs of white spots on the remaining fish?

Have you double checked the dosage of medication? It's easy to overdose a tank when basing the calculation of medicine on length x width x height - the water is not filled right to the top, and rocks/wood/plants in a heavily decorated tank can also reduce your water volume a fair bit.

What's the tank temperature and what sort of filtration do you have? The other thing that's possible is that something in the medication has killed off your filter bacteria and the fish died of ammonia poisoning. An ammonia test kit would be a very good investment IMO.

 

[matildadog]

The medication that we have been using is called Ich Attach. The brand is Kordon Aqua Herbals, and the active ingrediants are "multiple natural herbals containing Naphthoquinone."

We did that for 4 days, then yesterday we switched to Copper Sulfate. We have been trying to be precise about dosage.

The filtration system is a tetra whisper... it is a filter at the top of the tank. We've been using carbon, but took it out for the medication.

The fish that died showed various symptoms. The platys were laying on the rocks. Almost everyone became less active in some way. But the pleco is swimming more than usual, seems agitated, dashes to the top often and gulps for air. Sometimes he just kind of floats at the top of the tank vertically with his mouth half out of the water. He has wounds from when he fell (jumped) out of the tank, which as of yesterday have a sort of cottonish film on them. We are looking into medications for fungus and bacteria.

We raised the temp to 80 to treat the ich (or what we thought was ich), but we're lowering it slightly now.

 

[Neesmo]

did you get this sorted out in your tank? i really hate to hear of things like this. If there was damage to your poor pleco then i would say you needed to quickly get on anti fungal/bacterial medications.. It sounds like you dont have enough o2 in your water if your pleco is zipping to the top for a gulp of air like that. do you have an air bubbler and what is the dimentions of your tank?

Kyle

 

[fishnovice]

did you get this sorted out in your tank? i really hate to hear of things like this. If there was damage to your poor pleco then i would say you needed to quickly get on anti fungal/bacterial medications.. It sounds like you dont have enough o2 in your water if your pleco is zipping to the top for a gulp of air like that. do you have an air bubbler and what is the dimentions of your tank?

Kyle

Yes sounds like lack of oxygen. If you don't have an airstone, raise filter outlet just above the surface to create lots of bibbles and aerate the tank. Works well, do this on all my tanks.