Keep loosing my plecostomus!!

A

asshawk

New Fish
#1
Dec 2, 2009
4
0
0
Albany, NY
#1
I have a 10G tank that was started late Nov 09. Right now I have 4 adult Guppies, 2 baby Guppies, 4 medium - small Mollies, and 1 Plecostomus. I started with Guppies (2 at a time), then the Pleco. I waited about three days before adding new fish each time. Three weeks into it we got slammed with ich and we lost the Pleco. It was my daughter's favorite fish, so I bought a new one after a week or two. 4 days later, we lost that one as well. I thought I'd wait till the tank cycled, then try again. Well, I test the water fairly frequently, and it seems like levels are decent.
pH - 7.6
amonnia - 0
nitrite - 0
nitrate - 10
The pH might be alittle high, but I thought Pleco's were supposed to outlive everything?
Anyway, I bought a new pleco yesterday and he just doesn't seem healthy... I'm not really sure what they are supposed to do, or look like when they are happy, but the ones I seem to be getting are just not too chipper. It doesn't move around much, and the fins are more towards his body. The scales also look like they protrude alittle bit on the tail. Its exactly what the last one looked like before he turned into fish food for the other fishes...

Its really sad! I don't want to keep buying these fish if I'm just going to end up killing them!
Is it something I need to be feeding them? or a Temperature? Mine is at 78 btw.
I usually feed a pinch of flakes every other day, and there IS algae growing on the rocks...
What am I doing wrong? is it just a matter of going to a different fish place? The place I get my fish from is a small pet store that carries all kind of specialty foods you wouldn't find at a chain store, so I figured they would be high quality...

Any suggestions?
 

Newman

Newman

Elite Fish
#4
Sep 22, 2009
4,668
0
0
Northern NJ
#4
lol I would just keep the gups in that 10 gallon. not much else can go in there..
give the rest of em to an LFS for credit, you're fairly overstocked with those mollies.
 

A

asshawk

New Fish
#5
Dec 2, 2009
4
0
0
Albany, NY
#5
I didn't realize pleco's needed that much room... :( It still doesn't make sense that they would die so quickly tho. (two died less than a week after adding them to the tank) I will stop trying to keep them, but I feel like there is a definite reason that they are dieing so quickly in my tank... Wouldn't there be a chemical spike or something?... All the other fish are flourishing! I am perplexed!
Tiny snails wouldn't effect a pleco, would they?
I realize the larger the tank, the better, but a 10G is the largest we can have in our apt.
That is a good idea to give away the Mollies.
Thanks for the input, and wish me luck!
 

Newman

Newman

Elite Fish
#7
Sep 22, 2009
4,668
0
0
Northern NJ
#7
yea lol plecos need to be fed. if it was a common pleco then it would eat vegetarian things, but you might have gotten a carnivorous pleco by mistake? those are usually m more colorful..
 

A

asshawk

New Fish
#8
Dec 2, 2009
4
0
0
Albany, NY
#8
All three of the Pleco's I 'went through' were very dark brown and black, and all about the size of my thumb or smaller. For this last one I did buy algae wafers, but it just wasn't interested.
Could it be the way I'm introducing the fish? I normally float the container with the fish in it, in the tank for a good hour or two to acclimate the temp, then I use the net to put him in the tank. Should I be waiting longer?
 

L

littletankbigworld

Superstar Fish
#9
Aug 16, 2009
1,318
0
0
SW Pennsylvania
#9
Sometimes algae eaters will ignore wafers and prefer to be fed blanched (boiled) vegetables such as zucchini, broccoli, romaine lettuce, etc. When I acclimate fish, I float the bag for an hour and every 15 minutes I add half a cup of water from the fish tank into the fish's bag.
 

bassbonediva

bassbonediva

Superstar Fish
#10
Oct 15, 2009
2,010
0
0
Northern Arizona
#10
Sometimes you just get weak stock, as well. I bought a rubberlip pleco from Petsmart and within a few days of putting it into my fully-cycled 20gH tank, it died. So, I bagged him back up and took him back to Petsmart where they gladly replaced him for me. The second one lasted a whopping week before he died as well. Come to find out, all the rubberlip plecos that were in that tank ended up dying (as did all the angels, of which I bought one of those as well that died within a week or so).
 

Newman

Newman

Elite Fish
#11
Sep 22, 2009
4,668
0
0
Northern NJ
#11
proper acclimating procedure is not to just temp acclimate but to also keep adding tank water to the bag to pH acclimate as well.
This process should really be done for 30-60 minutes, not just 15.

sometimes if you find the bag is full of water after like 30 min, you can dump half of that water in the sink and just continue with the same method.
 

You must log in or register to reply here.