Fish help (Pleco)

jiffy

Hi,

Several weeks ago I bought a small Pleco to put into my tank that cycled a long time ago. All that was in the tank was a small Goldfish that was used to being in warm (76 degree) water.

The pleco being a fish that was suited to that temp I bought one and put him in. Within about two days the tank was gleaming.

I got the special Pleco sinking algae pellets to supplement him and I tried giving him lettuce, which I can't remember the name of, but he didn't seem interested in it.

Until yesterday he was fine then last night was hanging around at the top of the tank, stuck to the glass.

This morning my wife called me to tell me he's dead

What could have happened? The other fish pestered him for about a day but then left him alone, no attacking just following him around.

Did the poor thing starve since the tank was so clean and I don't recall seeing him eat the pellets even though they were gone?

The other option is that I took out the filter on Saturday / Sunday which is a spongs and activated carbon one and cleaned the gunge out of the sponge and washed the carbon, both under the tap. Surely that's not enough to make the tank cycle again? I've done it 20+ times admittedly with only the one fish in it.

The tank is about 20L ish, certainly no more but not significantly less.

I'd love to get another Pleco but if the same thing is going to happen I'd rather leave him in the fish store !

Any advice ?

Matt

Arcadian

Never ever clean your filter using tap water always use the aquarium water. I clean one half of each filter every 2/3 weeks using water drained from the tank.

jiffy

Arcadian wrote:

Never ever clean your filter using tap water always use the aquarium water. I clean one half of each filter every 2/3 weeks using water drained from the tank.

I did that tonight since I gave the tank a tidy out too. I also bought a water testing kit for PH, Ammonia, Nitrate and Nitrites so I'll try to keep a record of what the levels are at. The tests today gave me :

PH 6.4
Ammonia 0.5
Nitrite 0.5
Nitrate 5.0

Doesn't seem to bad to me, the Nitrate is up and the others are down, PH is fairly ok, certainly for Amazonian fish. Though I could be wrong ????

fred funk }{

Your fish died because of the ammonia/nitrite in the water, the smallest amount of either is enough to kill your fish.

There should be no ammonia and no nitrite in a healthy cycled tank. Dont worry to much about nitrate as this is only harmfull in large amounts and regular water changes takes care of that.

As Arcadian said never wash the filter sponges in tap water as the chlorine in tap water kills bacteria which makes it safe to drink but it kills the bacteria in the sponge that does all the work in your aquarium.

Only rinse the filters when they are clogged and do it when changing the water its easy that way.

If you have good healthy water your fish will look after themselves. And try not overfeed too.

Hope this helped.

jiffy

Silver Knight wrote:

Your fish died because of the ammonia/nitrite in the water, the smallest amount of either is enough to kill your fish.

There should be no ammonia and no nitrite in a healthy cycled tank. Dont worry to much about nitrate as this is only harmfull in large amounts and regular water changes takes care of that.

Hope this helped.

OK, then I'll have to keep testing the water until it's back to zero's. The Goldfish is OK but then I've heard that they'll live in almost anything, relatively speaking.

Thanks to everyone for the help, it it appeciated.

Matt