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Tropical Aquariums
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Water and Health
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sick ancistrus
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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 ancistrus
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06 Feb 2006 16:31 #1
by platty252 (Darren Dalton)
I returned home after been away for a week to find 4 of my 8 bristlenose plecos dead and the remaining 4 having what looks like severe finrot.
They have also stoped eating. They were offered tetra pleco wafers, cucumber, peas and krill, but wont eat anything.
If this is finrot is it normal to stop eating and for it to take hold so quickly that some would have died so quickly.
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07 Feb 2006 03:35 #2
by zebadee (zebadee)
I guess a few questions to begin with:
1) Did you leave a large amount of food in the tank before you left
2) Are you missing any more fish (is there a corpse decomposing behind a rock etc)
3) Is there any sign that the fins are bitten as opposed to fin rot
4) Are there any other fish in the tank?
5) What are the water perameters?
In my experience ancistrus are very hardy and in 10 years of keeping fish I have only ever lost one and that was because it strayed too close to a breeding pair of Calvus who killed it. I have never heard of or experienced finrot killing a fish that quickly. Usually the fishkeeper can recognise/treat the symptoms.
I'd try posting your prob on cichlidforum.com, you have a wider audience, greater experience and a more prompt solution to your problem.
Ancistrus are very picky about the amount of disolved salts in the water. Have you recently changed the substrate, water, added a rock etc? I was once using sea salt as part of a buffer solution to increase the ph/gh/kh levels in my tank which would drive my ancistrus nuts skimming up and down the tank heading to surface and back down again. Frequent small water changes sorted that out.
One other thing although I doubt this may be the cause but breeding ancistrus are pretty grouchy to co specifics. How big is your tank?
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08 Feb 2006 11:23 #3
by Alan86 (Alan86)
Hey!...i was wondering if anyone could help me out!....i had an albino pleco in my tank along with a few other small guppys and another plec (i havnt gt new fish in a long time as i plan to gt a bigger tank in a few weeks)....Anyways!.....last night i was watching the fish when i noticed the nose on the albino appeared scratched, i wasnt too sure bout this cause id sometimes see him dig i little in the gravel.....i took a picture of it anyway to ask about it!....i woke up this morning however nd found him dead!...
...and when i took him out he had these "rash" all over his body (mostly on his underside!)...None of the other fish show any signs of damage!.....i had been having problems with water nitrates the last month back but had got the all clear last week....im sure this had something to do with it but im still worried as to wat it was nd how it killed the fish so fast!..wat seemed like over night infact!....iv included links for 2 pics of him....the first one is was taken about a month ago, shows how he looked previously....and the last one is a picture of his underside this morning!.....any help would be much appreciated!! Thanks
netsoc.dit.ie/%7Esparky/alan_fish/Plec3.jpg
netsoc.dit.ie/%7Esparky/alan_fish/Plec5.jpg
The money was just resting in my Account!
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08 Feb 2006 13:59 #4
by zebadee (zebadee)
I have seen pleckos act like your description before and in my experience it has been caused by raised salt levels in the water. Pleckos do not have scales and as a consequence are far less tolerant of increased salt levels. The signs of this is usually excessive burrowing/scraping the body off the substrate/rocks as the fish try to 'itch' the irritation.
I am at a loss to explain why your fish died so quickly but I suspect that the signs on the underside of the fish is either excessive scratching OR the result of fish attacking the corpse of your fish before you found it?
Have you changed substrate, added rocks such as granite or been playing with the Gh/Kh levels.
Hope this helps.
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08 Feb 2006 16:33 #5
by platty252 (Darren Dalton)
Hay zebadee,
My brother was looking after the fish while i was out of the country and removed any dead fish.
The tank is bare except from some caves and bogwood.
Any food left the next day was syphoned out and fresh food put in.
No salt is used as i know plecos cant tolarate salt.
These are young plecos, about 6-7 months old.
The only other fish in the tank are some new born golden rice fish. These are only in here because it was an unexpected hatch before i left and didnt have an empty tank at the time. They have since been moved.
The water is fine except for nitrate a little high at 25 mg/l and nitrite at 0.1mg/l. but i expect this is from the deaths.
There is no sigh of bites or fighting. I lost one of my L-200 a good while back and he had some nasty bites on him even though they had 1'1/2 square of tank floor each. They still decided to fight one night while i was asleep. I did'nt even see it coming.
I dont think it is fin rot because they are off their food, but i have gone ahead and treated them for it.
I can only hope to save the 4 that are left.
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08 Feb 2006 17:09 #6
by Alan86 (Alan86)
No new decor has been added to the tank in over a year, however I found myself having to do frequent water changes (aprox 3 a week) for the last month or so back due to the high nitrate problems I mentioned, as a result the gravel in the tank has been cleaned and shifted about more than usual. Could this have caused the increased irritation?
The money was just resting in my Account!
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conor (conor)
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08 Feb 2006 18:08 #7
by conor (conor)
Please check for ammonia, nitrite (nitrate is really not an issue at any detectable levels, except for making algae grow and over _long_ periods -> years, can cause fish health issues) and tell me what they say.
Are you using a dechlorinator? What is the water quality like from the source?
Dying fish means dodgy water, unless you have deep sand which was not mixed up before, then I dount the substrate is to blame.
Please test for water hardness.. maybe the substrate itself is to blame...
Let us know...
Conor.
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conor (conor)
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08 Feb 2006 18:11 #8
by conor (conor)
Oh and using medication will kill your filter bacteria, never use it. Its worse than useless.
never add medication to a tank, its not required, ever.
In severe situations of disease, either increase the temp to 30 degrees or remove the fish and treat in a container.
However, thats not your issue. Tell me water conditions, hardness, nityrite, ammonia...
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12 Feb 2006 12:49 #9
by Alan86 (Alan86)
Hey I got my water checked down in the trop shop yesterday, all was normal!, Ken reckons that the marks on the belly where just where the other fish started to nip at him!, i think hes prob right since no other fish has shown any strange behaviour since the incidence!
Big thanks to all for the help and advice!
Alan
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