Any Plecostomus problems which would cause them to just up and Die?
by Aquaboy on Thursday, April 22nd, 2010 | 6 Comments
the rest of the fish in the aquarium are fine and I test water regularly and water change. I had two Plecos about three inches long. One died and then the other about a month later. any ideas?
Feeding algae tablets at the time.
Get fish from non chain stores generally. 75 gallon tank. have 3 corydoras and 3 clown loaches also.
Most diseases don’t cause very sudden death and especially not without visible signs. Water quality issues can of course, but since yours all checks out we can rule that possibility out. Being that far apart in time I doubt there was an internal infection at work, they probably would have died closer together in time.
That really only leaves me with diet maybe. Were you feeding them specifically and feeding them some fresh vegetable matter on a regular basis?
Just a thought or two
MM
don’t have any ideas for you, but if you get any good answers let me know because i hate mine and want to kill him off!!
not enough food or they are old.
Maybe your gravel is dirty. You can have pretty clean water if you do frequent water changes and still have old muck at the bottom of the tank.
Maybe there was not enough algea for them
Most things have already been covered, but another thought occurred to me.
Since you are not naming them as other than “plecos” , I assume you just bought the common Hypostomus variety. These are the oldest type of commercially available plecos and, like some other varities of fish (guppies to name one) , have become weaker over the years due to excessive amounts of inbreeding from a small parent gene pool. It’s possible you just got weak ones that come from a very bad gene pool. Since they were only 3 inches long they were very young (as that type regularly achieve lengths of 18 – 24 inches) and that seems to me to be the most likely reason given the other things you describe about your tank.
A couple of suggestions for you: First, unless you have a very large tank, stay away from the normal pleco most stores sell and try to find a miniature variety to handle your algae (like the clown or the diminuative otocinclus).
Secondly, if you are determined to try them again, try buying one from a different source, preferably a small local store as opposed to a chain. You might get better luck there. All my plecos (currently 10 types plus 2 Otocinclus) have been bought from smaller non-chain stores.
Hope this help and good luck.