Retirement and forum shutdown (17 Jan 2022)
Hi,
John Howell who has managed the forum for years is getting on and wishes to retire from the role of managing it.
Over the years, he has managed the forum through good days and bad days and he has always been fair.
He has managed to bring his passion for fish keeping to the forum and keep it going for so long.
I wish to thank John for his hard work in keeping the forum going.
With John wishing to "retire" from the role of managing the forum and the forum receiving very little traffic, I think we must agree that forum has come to a natural conclusion and it's time to put it to rest.
I am proposing that the forum be made read-only from March 2022 onwards and that no new users or content be created. The website is still registered for several more years, so the content will still be accessible but no new topics or replies will be allowed.
If there is interest from the ITFS or other fish keeping clubs, we may redirect traffic to them or to a Facebook group but will not actively manage it.
I'd like to thank everyone over the years who helped with forum, posted a reply, started a new topic, ask a question and helped a newbie in fish keeping. And thank you to the sponsors who helped us along the away. Hopefully it made the hobby stronger.
I'd especially like to thank John Howell and Valerie Rousseau for all of their contributions, without them the forum would have never been has successful.
Thank you
Darragh Sherwin
Sick Bristlenose Plec
- KenS (Ken Simpson)
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I have a juvinile Starlight Bristlenose Plec that I've had for a couple of weeks. I bought him from Anto in Kinsealy actually.
He's been fine up to now. However, got home tonight and he's just sitting in the same place at the bottom of the tank and won't move. He appears to be gasping. It's odd, because I've seen very little of him since I got him.
Water parameters look fine - ammonia and nitrITE are 0 and PH is 7.8. There's plenty of algae in my tank and I've been supplementing with a couple of algae wafers every second night.
I have two other larger Bristlenoses in the tank also.
Any ideas? Is there anything I can do for him?
Regards,
Ken.
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- monty (monty)
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Monty
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- KenS (Ken Simpson)
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Ken.
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- Anthony (Anthony)
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Hopefully he will come around.
Keep us posted.
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- KenS (Ken Simpson)
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He's hanging in there. Let's see how he is in the morning.
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Ken.
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- Anthony (Anthony)
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Thanks Anthony, but I thought he would have went into shock before now. Anytime I've got a glimpse of him over the past couple of weeks he looked fine.
He's hanging in there. Let's see how he is in the morning.
He might be just really stressed because of the ph.
Sometimes it can be hard to tell when Plecos are sick. He was fine when I sold him to you. I would never sell a sick fish. You might be better off with some small synodontis like Nigriventis or Flavetanenatus.
Keep us posted.
I might be there saturday(99%) if you can make it down. Have a proper chat with you.
Depends how drunk I get at the Christy Moore concert in Vicar street.
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- KenS (Ken Simpson)
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Ken.
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- Anthony (Anthony)
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Could be a blockage.
What substrate have you got. Sand is always best with Plecos.
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- KenS (Ken Simpson)
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Ken.
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- serratus (Drew Latimer)
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agree with anthony, ph of 7.8 is very high.
starlight ancistrus are, as far as i know, all wild, ours were! so it is prob too high. are the ones you got off me ok???
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- KenS (Ken Simpson)
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Lowering pH isn't easy. RO appears to be the best method, but isn't cheap to get set up.
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Ken.
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- KenS (Ken Simpson)
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I have a large piece of bogwood I got in Brittas which is no longer discolouring the water I have it soaking in. It's in about 40 litres and it brought the pH of that water down to 6.6. I could stick that in the tank and see if it improves things? It would certainly bring it down in the short term until I figure out a more permanent solution.
I had a better look at him and he's still gasping so no better than last night.
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Ken.
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- apistodiscus (apistodiscus)
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use rainwater or filter through moss peat to get your pH down
Holger
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- KenS (Ken Simpson)
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Ken.
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- apistodiscus (apistodiscus)
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- KenS (Ken Simpson)
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After 36 hours, there was no sign of Ich so I decided to treat for possible gill flukes with Sterazin. I put the first dose in this morning, but he was gone when I checked on him this evening.
He was fine when I bought him off Anto two weeks ago and seemed fine until Thursday night. I guess being such a young fish, the stress of being moved around so much over the past few weeks didn't help.
The person on the Pleco forum felt that my pH wasn't ideal, especially for a wild caught Starlights. However, it was unlikely to be the cause of death. The pH would have caused him problems over the medium term, but not so quickly. If it was pH shock, he would have succumb in the first couple of days.
I put some bog wood in the tank today so that should bring the pH down a bit. Now to find a more permanent solution. Filtering through peat looks like the most cost effective and is less hassle than RO.
Regards,
Ken.
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