Unexpected Death

Sniperelite8243

i awoke this morning and my pleco was dead, well one of them.
Nitrate-0
nitrite-0
ammonia-0

The other pleco is thriving. the dead pleco had all its fins, and didnt look like it was attacked. but that was the pleco that pooed the most. the other seemed normal. but the one that died once he pooed he would keep pooing? is that normal?
did he enter my tank with the problem

any ideas why he died so i can prevent this again

BJP

I don't think most people are going to have anywhere close to enough information here to guess accurately. From this post only two things spring to mind.

First of all, no nitrate is usually a sign of a new uncycled tank unless the tank is planted heavily. Pleco's really should go into established aquariums after a decent quarantine period. I see some other posts on this forum about algae and diatom growth so I'm led to believe the tank itself may not be new but a reference to not having algae wafers in another thread suggests at least the plecos themselves are fairly new.

If the pleco's are new and combined with the extra stringyness of the poo mentioned then maybe they brought something in with them or at least that one did. I'm not sure what precaution could be taken other than a good month or so in a quarantine tank. I don't know of an affetive way to treat grazers for internal parasites and problems. Freshwater fish don't drink water so randomly medicatting the tank would probably have done little good and the large size of the tank would have made that a bit costly while subjecting the original fish to medication regimines they probably didn't need. Other types of fish like loaches and catfish that consume premedicatted food easily you could probably do a little something about. I'm not even sure most algae wafers would hold together long enough to absorb meds and then still hold together in the tank long enough to be consumed. It might be worth a try though if you have the wafers by now. Aquatronics used to offer a good antiparasitic that I'd soak food in called Discomed but they changed the name and formula in 2001 so you'll have to find a dealer and ask a few questions.

My other concern from the post is the nitrate if the tanks unplanted. I have had false readings by only testing the water at the surface of slow flow setups. Food and waste tend to settle to the bottom and produce ammonia. The ammonia then has to travel up through the tank to a filter system usually. If it's a good biofilter then it should be dumping water out across the surface containing no ammonia or nitrite where we frequently gather samples for testing. Then the tests only really tell us the water quality of the water exitting the filter instead of the entire tank. If you have any doubts, collect some water from the bottom of the tank to test and hopefully you'll have good results there as well. If not then we may have a possible culprit, especially when the victom is a type that tends to hang out on the bottom where the problem is the worst.

You may never know for sure but sometimes the attempt teaches us new stuff. Maybe a little more time in the quarantine next time before going in the bigger tank.

Good luck and Merry Christmas.

Sniperelite8243

the tank is heavily planted
its not new- running for 6 months
they are new but i had alot of algea for them to eat, they finished it off lastnight so i got algea wafers today. but they did eat the algea.
very stringy poo, well only for the one that died, the other is normal.
when i bought the plecos at walmart they came out of different tanks. so that leaves the posibility that tank was sick. Im never buying fish at walmart again ( no offense if you work at walmart ) because at least my lfs marks a tank sick and doesnt sell you the fish.
Thanks for the help BJP and have a

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

dlee9707

how long have you had e'm? maybe they have a 14 day gaurentee or something of the matter. maybe dont change it in for a fish, but a new bag of food never hurt. after looking at walmarts selection i dont think i'll ever buy from them again. they have 1 tank of cichlids with sa ca and africans all in the same tank and they couldnt tell you which are which.

Sniperelite8243

ill trade it in if i can but not for food. i have a giant can of fish food and i have enough left for proboly about 3-4 years. i dont think it can go bad though. well ill check there guarentee.

Thanks for all your help

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

BJP

Actually fish food goes bad pretty quickly. Even worse is the method used for making the foods. Take Tetra's which are mostly what you find at Wally World. They usually start with a precooked meal. then cook it again into the final product. Ever cooked an egg then tried to cook it again a day later? It's not too bad the first time through the heat but the recooking of the foods further degrades the nutritional value which they try to make up for with mega doses of vitamins added in hoping something will still be viable by the time it gets shipped across the ocean, repackaged in Blacksburg Va, shipped to the wholesalers, then works it's way through their inventory to the back of the shelf at your local store where by the time you get your hands on it the product may be six months old or more.

In general you're better off buying the smaller sizes and running out more frequently if you hope to get anything close to nutritionally sound delivered into your tanks. Keep the lid on between uses and try not to stick wet fingers in the can to grab pinches.

Sniperelite8243

Never knew that.

Ill have to get the smaller sizes from now on

Thanks

Tommy Gun

I agree that the fish food should not be used much past 6 months, regardless of what it states the 'shelf life' is since it will lose nutrients over time.

However, and I dont know why this hasnt really been pointed out yet, plecos are naturally going to have some pretty long, stringy wastes, that is just a fact, and they are considered 'messy' because of the size (length) of some of these wastes. So, stringy-ness alone is not a true 'red flag', in my opinion and experience.

I think BJP does make the point that there is too little information to base a good 'diagnosis' as to why your pleco died. I think there are so many factors that only you would be able to get to the bottom of things by doing some research. Most of these forums are built around the premise that a situation is explained, some educated guesses are made, more information is posted in reply, and so on and so forth until things get boiled down to a few eventual causes and things to do differently in the future. I do not think that there is a better method of doing things other than that and I would be leery about any 'expert' who was to give a very quick diagnosis from limited information and from what I have seen on any forum I have been on, fish related or not, the 'expert' will alway premise his or her comments by stating something to the effect of "it could be this" or "it could be that, did you check..." and never "This is the problem" unless it is very common like Ich on a fish or a dead battery in a car.

Tommy Gun

Also, just to add to the topic of medicated food, I know my LFS has a 'garlic enhanced' algea tab product and I will get the name and info for you the next time I go there. In general, using garlic is seen as the 'natural' method of treating internal parasites such as the one I had with a yellow lab of mine. The garlic worked well.

It is also important to keep in mind that plecos in general will eat a lot of food that has fallen to the substrate and they are not pure algea eaters by any means. This is especially true as the pleco gets older and closer to maturity. I think if that is considered, it would be relatively safe to say that you could feed a pleco some medicated food, even if it was a medicated cucumber. While I have no experience with the pleco aspect, like BJP, I have used some of the soaking 'solutions' that would put meds directly into a food source, however, my experience is only with the garlic additives.