I had a gorgeous little pleco in my 30 gallon tank for about a month. I was concerned that I didn't have enough algae in my super clean tank, so after speaking to one of the knowledgeable staff members at my fishie store, he suggested supplementing with algae disks twice a week to make sure he was getting enough to eat. I had a regular chinese algae eater in my old 10 gallon last year that died of starvation because, being a novice, I didn't know he wasn't getting enough to eat. I felt horrible about it, but this time I was going to make it work. So, I was supplementing with the algae disks for the last 2 weeks and last night I found my pleco dead. It didn't look thin or sick or anything like that. I'm baffled and sad, I really liked this pleco, he was so cool looking. My tank is super healthy ph 7.0 (neutral) and ammonia is 0.0. I have several other fish that are all doing great, a couple of my fish are over a year old and doing great. I just don't get how this fish died, I was hoping to have him for years. Did I do something wrong? Any suggestions or advice is welcome. Thanks!
Hi,
Actually I do use 1 tablespoon per 5 gallons, I thought that was a good thing to keep away ick and prevent fish stress. No one at the aquarium store ever told me that. I will definitely look into that before I get another pleco. Thank you for the info!
You know what, I actually had the same thing happen to a little Pleco I got at Petco. We do have salt in our aquarium and didn't realize that it could hurt them. I believe that this was probably the cause of it; however, the thing never did try to eat when we got it. It seemed doomed from day one. We supplemented with algae wafers to make sure there was enough food for the little guy. We got a new Pleco at a local store that is doing great. We will probably cut down the salt a little to be careful. (We didn't really have much to begin with)
This type of thing seems to happen quite often with Petco fish!
Hi,
Thanks for the info. I actually never but my fish at chain stores, like Petco or Petland, only at a specialty aquarium store that I have been going to for a year or so, the staff there are extremely knowledgeable. I have not had any other propblems with any other fish from there. I had the fish for about a month and it seemed to be thriving until the day it died. It had absolutely no sign of any disease. It must have been the salt, although I would think that would have happened sooner than a month after purchasing him. If I do decide to get another pleco, I would definitely reduce the salinity of my tank. I've been doing some research since the first reply and I've seen several forums and articles that support this theory. Thanks again for the info!
Try raising the algae discs up to 3 times a week and try to let a little algae grow in the tank. How big is the pleco. If it was over 5 inches you would have to move it to a bigger tank.
It's possible the fish may just have been unhealthy. Not every fish dies for reasons we can explain due to stress, PH shock, or a lack of acclimatization to whatever other hundreds of varying parameters in your tank that its little system kicked out after some time.
A little bit of salt is recommendable in most situations, the only tank I own without it is my Dwarf Puffer tank cause he's really intolerant and lacks the scales to acclimate so its a treatment only situation, not a preventative. The only thing you need to be sensitive with when using salt is diluting it (the dose for your entire tank, or amount of replaced water) in top-off or replacement water first, not adding directly to the tank like you're making kool-aid or something.
Buuut I do use smaller wafers almost every other day in my 16gal...however I have 3 corydoras, and 3 kuhli loaches (and an otocinculus) that make them disappear as soon as they've softened. If you watched your pleco eat, and he seemed to basically inhale the wafer and continue to search drastically for food, he may still have been left wanting more food.
From everything you've said though, honestly, I don't think you're really doing anything wrong, unless your pleco was overly sensitive to nitrates, and you hadn't done a water change in awhile.
Thanks for the info. All the nitrate, ammonia and ph levels were actually perfect. I test the water weekly and I change 30 to 40% of the water every 4 to 6 weeks, the tank is doing great and all my other fish, even the delicate ones, are doing great, it may have had an underlying condition that was not apparent. There were no apparent signs of disease, such as white spots, sunken-ness, strange swimming patterns, listlessness, sores, red gills, nothing at all. I examined him after he was dead and there were no signs of anything wrong. I am still going to look into the salt issue. I am going to need a Pleco, since he's been gone I am starting to grow some algae on the glass. I just want to be sure that the tank is okay the way it is before I get another one. I don't want this to happen again. I would really like to get another one, they are such cool-looking fish. I miss seeing him in there. Anyway, thanks again for the reply, I can never get enough information. Take care!
Plecos are great fish and they can manage a little salt. Try feeding them cucumbers. They might be in a to small enviroment. What kind of pleco is it. Did it get along with the fish in the tank. Were you feeding it the right amount of food. There can be a lot of symptoms to diseases that you didn't know about.
Is any other bottom feeders eating there food. Try to pay more attention to diseases.
Hey, did you add any chemiclas to the water before he died? Plecos are not scaled fish and so they are very sensitive to any chemicals added to the tank.
Just wanted to help
I have had the odd fish die for no apparent reason, all water parameters in my tank are great. I just had one of my Siamese algae eaters die, all my other fish were fine and he was not being bothered by other fish, it was a complete mystery to why he died I just keep a close on the tank to make sure none of the other fish are showing signs of illness. As for the salt, I had a pleco for a long time and I use salt in my tank. I had to take him to the local fish store and give him to them, he had out grown the tank I had and they sold him shortly after that.
