TheFishScientist
New Member
I've had my pleco for 7 years, he is about 8". I noticed got sick around 8/24/22, he had a tank mate an albino rainbow shark, about 5" who had just died and the pleco feed off the sick fish.
I was lacking on tank cleaning due to personal issues so it had only been cleaned a couple times within a 8 month period and I think I wasn't feeding him enough bc I noticed he looked thin. Ive gone months before without cleaning the tank and not had issues like this. It is an enclosed tank so water doesn't evaporate. I noticed the past couple months or so he had been doing alot of dashing around the tank. The albino rainbow shark was antagonizing the pleco and would follow him around and nip at his tail repeatedly. One day I was made aware that my albino rainbow shark had died and was floating in the water, he was just fine earlier that day. The pleco had taken a pretty decent chunk out of his dead body. I did not see any ich (white spots) on the dead body of the albino rainbow shark.
Just to be safe I immediately removed the pleco from his 55 gallon tank and put him in a 6 gal quarantine tank. This is the pleco right before I moved him.
I assumed he had some sort of ich/bacterial infection due to the other fish dying and I wanted to approach in the least harsh way as possible. I started salt and heat treatment around September 1st. I replaced the salt whenever i changed the water and turned the heat up to about 78-80°F. I was changing is water every 2 or 3 days and used seachem stress guard and water conditioner everytime. I continued that for a bout 2 weeks. In addition to salt and heat treatment I started imagitarium parasitic remedy on Sep. 2nd I also started using seachem amguard the bring the ammonia levels down bc they were pretty high. These were the water parameters before I moved him from his original tank (Stable)
GH-180 KH-80 pH-7 NO2-0 NO3-20
As soon as I put him in the quarantine tank the ammonia and NO3 levels started spiking like crazy although I was doing 25% water changes every 2-3 days. I've had fish for the past 13 years, ik that when you change water the ammonia and NO3 levels go down not spike up. The baseline water parameters became GH-180 KH-80 pH-7 NO2- 10+ NO3-200+ which was worse then the tank he came from, that I water tested before I moved him. It was high like that for about 2 weeks straight.
I started Imagitarium Bacterial infection remedy around September 4th.
On September 8th he was still not doing good, not moving much, he was pale, his poop was pale, stringy, with mucus in it and floating in the water, i could tell from his poop how sick he was. He had damage to his fins. was breathing very rapidly, not eating much and had clamped fin. Its is 11/22/22 and my pleco is still sick. Long story short the person I was living with was poisoning the water. Idk what they used but I know they were repeatedly poured something I'm the tank when I wasn't at home bc I would change the water, leave for about 6 hours come back and the ammonia spiked to about 4.0-6.0ppm. That caught my attention bc I water test almost everyday and ammonia goes down with water changes not up. As soon as I moved my fish to a different location the ammonia stopped spiking. The water parameters stabilized and began running around GH-180 KH-80 pH- 7.5 NO2-0 NO3-40 around 10/22/22. Water has been stable since then. Here are some pics of my pleco within the last month. I'm a trying a fungus treatment next. Please help! idk what to try that would work.
First pic is the albino rainbow shark when I removed him from the tank on 8/17/22 Second pic is the pleco right before I moved him from his 55gallon to a 6 gal quarantine tank on 8/31/22
Third-fifth pic is from 11/12/22-11/13/22
Sixth and seventh pic is from 11/21/22
I was lacking on tank cleaning due to personal issues so it had only been cleaned a couple times within a 8 month period and I think I wasn't feeding him enough bc I noticed he looked thin. Ive gone months before without cleaning the tank and not had issues like this. It is an enclosed tank so water doesn't evaporate. I noticed the past couple months or so he had been doing alot of dashing around the tank. The albino rainbow shark was antagonizing the pleco and would follow him around and nip at his tail repeatedly. One day I was made aware that my albino rainbow shark had died and was floating in the water, he was just fine earlier that day. The pleco had taken a pretty decent chunk out of his dead body. I did not see any ich (white spots) on the dead body of the albino rainbow shark.
Just to be safe I immediately removed the pleco from his 55 gallon tank and put him in a 6 gal quarantine tank. This is the pleco right before I moved him.
I assumed he had some sort of ich/bacterial infection due to the other fish dying and I wanted to approach in the least harsh way as possible. I started salt and heat treatment around September 1st. I replaced the salt whenever i changed the water and turned the heat up to about 78-80°F. I was changing is water every 2 or 3 days and used seachem stress guard and water conditioner everytime. I continued that for a bout 2 weeks. In addition to salt and heat treatment I started imagitarium parasitic remedy on Sep. 2nd I also started using seachem amguard the bring the ammonia levels down bc they were pretty high. These were the water parameters before I moved him from his original tank (Stable)
GH-180 KH-80 pH-7 NO2-0 NO3-20
As soon as I put him in the quarantine tank the ammonia and NO3 levels started spiking like crazy although I was doing 25% water changes every 2-3 days. I've had fish for the past 13 years, ik that when you change water the ammonia and NO3 levels go down not spike up. The baseline water parameters became GH-180 KH-80 pH-7 NO2- 10+ NO3-200+ which was worse then the tank he came from, that I water tested before I moved him. It was high like that for about 2 weeks straight.
I started Imagitarium Bacterial infection remedy around September 4th.
On September 8th he was still not doing good, not moving much, he was pale, his poop was pale, stringy, with mucus in it and floating in the water, i could tell from his poop how sick he was. He had damage to his fins. was breathing very rapidly, not eating much and had clamped fin. Its is 11/22/22 and my pleco is still sick. Long story short the person I was living with was poisoning the water. Idk what they used but I know they were repeatedly poured something I'm the tank when I wasn't at home bc I would change the water, leave for about 6 hours come back and the ammonia spiked to about 4.0-6.0ppm. That caught my attention bc I water test almost everyday and ammonia goes down with water changes not up. As soon as I moved my fish to a different location the ammonia stopped spiking. The water parameters stabilized and began running around GH-180 KH-80 pH- 7.5 NO2-0 NO3-40 around 10/22/22. Water has been stable since then. Here are some pics of my pleco within the last month. I'm a trying a fungus treatment next. Please help! idk what to try that would work.
First pic is the albino rainbow shark when I removed him from the tank on 8/17/22 Second pic is the pleco right before I moved him from his 55gallon to a 6 gal quarantine tank on 8/31/22
Third-fifth pic is from 11/12/22-11/13/22
Sixth and seventh pic is from 11/21/22
thanks I'll try that
