What Pleco Is This?

[5lider]

It is a Gibbiceps or Sailfin plec and gets bigger than 30cm! More like 50-60cm. They get big a messy! More active than the commons as well IMO.

The tank is 180L, Juwel name their tanks after the literage. Should be about a 3ft tank, possibly a bow front?

The plec will get much too big for the tank, personally I would return him and not get any more fish until we work out what is wrong with the molly, gasping at the top is bad and usually indicative of water problems.

Do you have a water test kit? Or can you get a sample of water to nearest fish shop and get tested for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and ph. That is the most urgent thing to do, meanwhile, it might be worth just doing a good water change and cleaning the gravel to make sure its not too mucky.

Hi mate no it's not the bow front I went for the straight one
All my test are 0 and ph is around 6.6 with co2 injection for the plants the ammonia test is Around .50 as I used tpn+ which had ammonium added so is giving a false positive

I just checked them and all the fish are now at the bottom cos light is out etc i think I didn't have the filter pump at the right angle because there wasn't enough water being adjitated to give more O2 as soon as I angled the pipe better the white moved away from the top and went lower down and has been lower down all night now so am not sure with her atm

I was going to mail order but how do they not get killed or stressed being in transit as I've never seen the packing they come in

I can understand your concern here. I'm sure they would be stressed to a certain degree but iv had many fish mail ordered and none have been dead on arrival or even died at all for the time iv owned them.

I have all my fish mail ordered from Trimar aquarium, they have a full stock list and price list on their website (Trimar.co.uk)

If you order before 11am on any week day the fish is at your door before 12pm the following day. As for the packing, you have a bag with the fish in (and obviously water) in the centre of a polystyrene box and then 4-5 bags of heated water surrounding the centre bag with the fish. They are all insulated in the polystyrene box with sheets of newspaper and then a polystyrene lid is placed on top and all that then goes in an equal sized cardboard box

Thanks for your help today ill give them a try

 

[dbanner]

Juwel now make their tanks bigger than the name. At some point they increased the dimensions slightly (apparently), and I have the same tank. It is definitely 207 litres.

207 litres is before you add the substrate so it still works out at roughly 180 litres the only ones that are increased in means of dimensions/litres are the Rio 300 and Rio 400 which are both increased to 350 and 450 litres (instead of the older 300 and 400 litres)

It is a Gibbiceps or Sailfin plec and gets bigger than 30cm! More like 50-60cm. They get big a messy! More active than the commons as well IMO.

The tank is 180L, Juwel name their tanks after the literage. Should be about a 3ft tank, possibly a bow front?

The plec will get much too big for the tank, personally I would return him and not get any more fish until we work out what is wrong with the molly, gasping at the top is bad and usually indicative of water problems.

Do you have a water test kit? Or can you get a sample of water to nearest fish shop and get tested for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and ph. That is the most urgent thing to do, meanwhile, it might be worth just doing a good water change and cleaning the gravel to make sure its not too mucky.

Hi mate no it's not the bow front I went for the straight one
All my test are 0 and ph is around 6.6 with co2 injection for the plants the ammonia test is Around .50 as I used tpn+ which had ammonium added so is giving a false positive

I just checked them and all the fish are now at the bottom cos light is out etc i think I didn't have the filter pump at the right angle because there wasn't enough water being adjitated to give more O2 as soon as I angled the pipe better the white moved away from the top and went lower down and has been lower down all night now so am not sure with her atm

I was going to mail order but how do they not get killed or stressed being in transit as I've never seen the packing they come in

I can understand your concern here. I'm sure they would be stressed to a certain degree but iv had many fish mail ordered and none have been dead on arrival or even died at all for the time iv owned them.

I have all my fish mail ordered from Trimar aquarium, they have a full stock list and price list on their website (Trimar.co.uk)

If you order before 11am on any week day the fish is at your door before 12pm the following day. As for the packing, you have a bag with the fish in (and obviously water) in the centre of a polystyrene box and then 4-5 bags of heated water surrounding the centre bag with the fish. They are all insulated in the polystyrene box with sheets of newspaper and then a polystyrene lid is placed on top and all that then goes in an equal sized cardboard box

Thanks for your help today ill give them a try

No problem at all and the now front version of the jewel tank MBOU is referring to is the jewel vision 180... But now you have said you have the rectangle shape tank it's clear to say it the jewel Rio 180 that you have... Both types are 3 foot in length and both hold 180 litres with substrate and 207 litres if the tank has no substrate (bare bottom tank)

 

[Livewire88]

He is nice

 

[5lider]

Sorry to say but the pleco had died this morning He wasn't taking very well to the tank after a few hrs and was lying on his side a few times before i went to bed but would then swim around again but this morning was on his side not breathing so I returned him to pets at home and she said some fish don't like being transported. So I got 3 black tetra to replace him they all seem happy now

 

[Baccus]

Sorry that the pleco died, they are usually pretty tough.

 

[5lider]

Starting not to like pets at home as today they had 3 male fighters in same tank

 

[dannybgoode]

Sorry to here about your plec - mine just died after 36 hours or so as well. Bought him from a respected LFS, long established tank etc and all other fish absolutely fine.

Seems to be a few like this at the moment.

Regarding Pets at Home, a lot of fish shops seem to have fish stocked together that you wouldn't at home. Red Tailed Sharks being the other one I see a lot. I guess they think they're not going to be together for long.

I was very surprised the other week actually when Pets at Home were going to refuse to sell me some fish because they felt I had added enough recently and the filter my not cope. I explained I had been keeping fish for years and would be testing the water daily at first but that the tank was massively overfiltered etc and they relented. Nice to see they checked though.

Cheers

Danny B

 

[mossonthemoon]

Juwel now make their tanks bigger than the name. At some point they increased the dimensions slightly (apparently), and I have the same tank. It is definitely 207 litres.

207 litres is before you add the substrate so it still works out at roughly 180 litres the only ones that are increased in means of dimensions/litres are the Rio 300 and Rio 400 which are both increased to 350 and 450 litres (instead of the older 300 and 400 litres)

Ah that is good to know because I did wonder. I know that it holds less with substrate obviously, but I didn't know they always had that extra room for that. When someone says "180 litre tank" most people assume there will be less water because of substrate. Mine does happen to have more than 180 litres because obviously this is dependent on amount of substrate used, decorations, etc.

 

[dbanner]

Starting not to like pets at home as today they had 3 male fighters in same tank

Generally pets at home are not too good when it comes to fish. You do get the odd pets at home store which is ok though.

As stated above plecs are usually pretty tough fish and have been known to live through extreme conditions... Whether your plan was to take the plec back to the store or not, it's always sad to have a fish die... Sorry for your loss

Juwel now make their tanks bigger than the name. At some point they increased the dimensions slightly (apparently), and I have the same tank. It is definitely 207 litres.

207 litres is before you add the substrate so it still works out at roughly 180 litres the only ones that are increased in means of dimensions/litres are the Rio 300 and Rio 400 which are both increased to 350 and 450 litres (instead of the older 300 and 400 litres)

Ah that is good to know because I did wonder. I know that it holds less with substrate obviously, but I didn't know they always had that extra room for that. When someone says "180 litre tank" most people assume there will be less water because of substrate. Mine does happen to have more than 180 litres because obviously this is dependent on amount of substrate used, decorations, etc.

This may not could with all tanks.. Some may say 180 litres and that could be without substrate so that figure will go down to around say 160litre. Like you said depending on how much substrate you have. I know jewel tanks are made that much bigger though.

 

[5lider]

Sorry to here about your plec - mine just died after 36 hours or so as well. Bought him from a respected LFS, long established tank etc and all other fish absolutely fine.

Seems to be a few like this at the moment.

Regarding Pets at Home, a lot of fish shops seem to have fish stocked together that you wouldn't at home. Red Tailed Sharks being the other one I see a lot. I guess they think they're not going to be together for long.

I was very surprised the other week actually when Pets at Home were going to refuse to sell me some fish because they felt I had added enough recently and the filter my not cope. I explained I had been keeping fish for years and would be testing the water daily at first but that the tank was massively overfiltered etc and they relented. Nice to see they checked though.

Cheers

Danny B

Same here I check the water daily when adding new fish but they said only 3 tetras cos I bought 3 Molly's last night, regarding the fighters the tank was maybe 4ltr it's them small square ones they have but they didn't like it cos one was flaring his neck and the other 2 was hiding

 

[elmo666]

I think the clue is in the name. They are a multi outlet pet store that stock and sell a very basic selection of fish, generally the staff have to know a little about alot, and in my experience, short of reading parrot fashion from product boxes they know very little about anything. You are far better off going to an aquatic specialist as there is so much to know, and if you're new to the hobby you can't make the value judgement between good advice and bad. Sorry to hear of your loss, but as said they are usual pretty tough. Just as a precation I would check your readings again.

 

[mossonthemoon]

This may not could with all tanks.. Some may say 180 litres and that could be without substrate so that figure will go down to around say 160litre. Like you said depending on how much substrate you have. I know jewel tanks are made that much bigger though.

Yes, which is why I was clarifying that the OP's tank is a 207 litre tank. We have the same tank, and people didn't seem to understand which the OP was talking about. It is only 27 litres, but it does make a small amount of difference.

 

[5lider]

Just a quick update the black molly that I got last night has had 16 fry

 

[dbanner]

Just a quick update the black molly that I got last night has had 16 fry

Sweet

This may not could with all tanks.. Some may say 180 litres and that could be without substrate so that figure will go down to around say 160litre. Like you said depending on how much substrate you have. I know jewel tanks are made that much bigger though.

Yes, which is why I was clarifying that the OP's tank is a 207 litre tank. We have the same tank, and people didn't seem to understand which the OP was talking about. It is only 27 litres, but it does make a small amount of difference.

Yep your right, the more litres the better... Even if it is only a little more

 

[5lider]

Hi dbanner that white molly has been at the top again today while all the others have been low down I fed them brine shrimp and all the others had a feast but the white one didn't bother. She seems to go between bottom and then back to the top at some point and today she was going up but looked as though she was finding it hard to get to the top so she stoped. Any ideas