Pleco Problems

[jgottlieb12]

I've had my 55 Gallon tank setup for a couple of months. Everything has cycled and there are no traces of ammonia or nitrites. I have three small pleco's. 2 gold nuggets and 1 stripped pleco that I can't remember the actual name of. the rest of my tank is small fish such as guppies and neons. I also have half a dozen cory's. the pleco's survive for about 30 days and then die. no apparent reason. I just lost another one today. he was a replacement for others that have died. I don't know why they are dying. The pleco's tend to sit around and eat the driftwood or hide underneath it. they rarely sit on the glass like I expect pleco's to do. There doesn't seem to be much algae on the glass or tank even though i have a relatively high power light.

Does anybody have any ideas on why these pleco's are giving up the ghost? All other fish are happy and I have not lost any other types of fish in months.

the only thing that I see happen is that ususally a couple of days before I lost a pleco, the pleco suddenly gets off the driftwood and actually sucks on the glass. a day or too later that pleco is dead.

my tank is about 79 degrees. everything else seems good. I don't have any real plants, just plastic ones, but I do have lots of driftwood. not much algae for whatever reason. I worry that they are not getting enough food, so i also drop in some semolina wafers after turning out the light at night. no idea what to do....

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Joshua

 

[catfishmike]

what are you feeding him.plecos need a wide varity of food not just algae.they need algae vegetables wood some meaty stuff like bloodworms.start with a good wafer like wardlys premium algae wafers or hikari sinking wafers.use garlic extrac or just rub frash garlic on the wafer to attract the plecos to the food.gold nuggets like more meat so you may what to try krill as well,maybe clams on top of what i listed.if they still die it could be another problem like internal parasites.often if fish are wild caught they have many parasites that lay dormant untill they are caught bagged and shipped,which stresses the fish allowing the parasites to take hold. here is a great website to learn more about plecos www.planetcatfish.com

 

[wayne]

It does sound like they're starving to death. Plastic plants but no algae sounds liek you've got a clean but sterile enviroment. How are the cories doing? When ypu feed flake, how much makes it to the bottom. Do you ever use frozen bloodworms or the suchlike. Try a single bristlenose, with sinking tablets, but 2 or 3 times a week a large , 1/2 inch piece of raw, frozen shrimp from the grocery store. After the tetra feeding frenzy, yu'll probably find the bristlenose clamped to it. Leave the whole thin in overnight.
I would guess that actually sucking onthe algae free glass is a last act of desparation. I'm breeding bristlenoses right now, and have growing gold nuggets (bought not bred), and I suspect my growout ank would look pretty grim to many people