Cannot keep a pleco alive...

[werdcrime]

I was hoping some of you might have some suggestions for me. Please bear with me for some background information. My girlfriend and I set up a new tank about 5-months ago. Since neither of us had taken care of an aquarium in quite some time we decided to start with a 10-gallon. We started with 3 mollys and let the tank get through its cycle. Two swordtails and a rubbernose pleco were added to the tank and (unbeknown to us) we also inherited ich and some sort of bacterial infection. Now either the diseases or the medication killed off the rubbernose, it was pretty hard to tell. Once that was under controll we waited about a month then bought a dwarf bristlenose for our tank. This little guy went belly up after about 4 days, the water parameters (pH, Nitrite, Ammonia) were good. So some time goes by again and I buy another dwarf bristlenose yesterday. There was not a whole lot of algae in the tank at this point so I added an algae wafer and some cucumber slices to the tank so the new guy wouldn't starve. This morning I found him next to my tank on the floor. I believe he must have flopped out near the power filter on the back of the tank as that is the only place large enough for him to get out. Now my question is...are there any less common water parameters I should be testing for or any other things I should be looking for? Maybe it's just bad luck...as it seems every fish that I like doesn't last long. My girlfriend now believes that me liking a fish is a curse. I really like plecos and would love to have one but I'm starting to feel bad that I keep killing them (or forcing them to kill themselves as it were).

Thanks in advance!

[OrionGirl]

What else is in the tank, in the way of hiding places? While the first deaths are unrelated, the third could be the result of the fish trying to get into the filter box, possibly to hide. Another consideration--how much water movement is there? Plecos, living near the bottom or the tank, are sensitive to low oxygen levels.

Third--how are you acclimating the fish to your tank?

[werdcrime]

At the moment there is a fake rock "cave" in the tank. I currently have a smaller piece of driftwood on order that should also provide a hiding place.

For water movement all we have is that provided by the power filter and a vibrating pump with an airstone. I'm not sure what else I could add to increase the flow.

I acclimated the fish by placing his bag in the tank for about 15 minutes, then adding about 1/4 cup of our aquarium water to the bag every 15 minutes about 3 times. Then he was placed in the aquarium.

Thanks for your help!

[OrionGirl]

Well. shouldn't be an acclimation problem then. And I think the cave should be enough, as long as the fish will fit in it an dno one harrasses him.

Any additives you use in the tank?

[werdcrime]

The only additive is a water conditioner to remove chlorine and chlormine, I don't have the the bottle right now so I couldn't tell you the brand.

[OrionGirl]

Well, very few dechlorination products would have this kind of effect on a fish. I was specifically wondering if you used aquarium salt of any kind--many plecos don't do well with high levels of salt, although low range (theraputic or medicinal levels) are seldom a problem.

Hmmm. Have you checked with the LFS to see if they had problems with that batch? I've purchased fish, only to have them die within a few days--and found out that the store lost the entire batch. Might be worth checking into. Bristlenose are usually some of the hardiest fish.

[werdcrime]

Doh! I completely forgot about that. We have added a little over a tablespoon of aquarium salt into the tank.

I'll see if I can find any information from the LFS although they aren't always the most helpful.

Also...one more thing. What is the pH range I should be at for these guys? From what I've read it's between 6.5 & 7.4 but that information varies from source to source.

[OrionGirl]

A tablespoon of aquarium salt isn't enough to cause a problem--although you certainly do not need to add it to your tank. While salt (NaCl) is a beneficial medication for some diseases, it is not needed in a freshwater setup. I advocate against Aquarium Salt--without a list of ingredients, you have no way of knowing what you're adding, nor what the effects will be on your water chemistry. For medicinal needs, I prefer table salt or marine mix (I have marine mix for the SW tanks, so it's convenient for me).

pH should be stable within that range. Doesn't have to be a specific value--for example, 7.2, is fine for most fish, as long as it stays there. Even high and low values are okay, as long as they are stable. Sudden changes (which often result from using products like Proper pH and pHUp/Down) can cause serious problems for any fish--and all fish. The mollies and swordtails would be showing some signs if this was the problem for you. For both mollies and swordtails, they prefer slightly harder water, with a higher pH. They should be fine in lower conditions, though, the key being stable conditions.

At this point I'd guess that the first 2 may have been ill when you acquired them, and the third was just bad luck.

[werdcrime]

Thank you for your help. At least on the surface it doesn't appear I'm doing anything incredibly wrong.

Thanks again!

[OrionGirl]

Where in Fort Collins are you getting the fish from? I get lots of my fish from Denizens of the Deep--they usually have good stock.

[JackDonkey]

Plecos don't like salt.

Scaleless fish like catfish also do not like medication.

Make sure you feed them more than flake food, algae/shrimp wafers, the green and brown/orange hikari bags.

Keep your temp around 76-78 and keep the water well oxygenated with airstone or something else.

Do all that and you shouldn't have many problems. I've bred bristlenose plecos in a 30gallon with lots of current, half tap half ro water, 78 degrees I think, feed them algae wafers and frozen bloodworms (would not breed without the bloodworms), and I also had 7 or 8 pieces of driftwood in that tank. Weekly 10 gallon water changes. If I didn't change the water every week the water was brown, really brown from all the driftwood. I had a 400gph powerhead with no filter (just strainer), a 125gph powerhead with just a strainer and aeration, and an emporer 400 (canister wouldv'e been better). Also kept a couple gold nuggets in this tank for a while, I had three total, 2 lived for about a year and 1 lived for about a week.

Also wild caught fish may have parasites and gill flukes that come with them and may shorten their lives.

[OrionGirl]

Plecos are fine in low levels of salt for a short time--my bristlenose were in heavily salted water for about 6 weeks--no problems. Also, rubber and bristlenose are seldom wild caught fish--these are both readily bred commercially. If the fish come from Denizens, I can almost gaurantee the bristlenose was bred locally.

[werdcrime]

Yep, I bought the most recent bristlenose at Denizens. The first bristlenose was from D&G (both are shops I remember shopping at when I was little). I'll avoid adding salt in future water changes since it isn't currently needed for anything.

[Bigdan]

I had ich in a tank and I also had a rubber-lipped pleco.

He didn't survive, and I presume it was the Coppersafe med I used. I replaced him after the ich was gone with another RL pleco and he also met his demise.

Personally, I think it was the Coppersafe. It could have been a bad bacteria that was in the tank. I don't know what med you used, and I would be curious to know.

I also added salt to the tank, but just one dose of aquarium salt.

NOTE: I'm assuming Rubbernose and Rubber-lipped are the same type of pleco.:cool:

[werdcrime]

I used NoxIch which was recommended by my LFS. Athough they were also treated earlier with small doses of Erythromycin (also recommended by LFS) for a bacterial infection.

[JackDonkey]

From the TFH Atlas of Freshwater and Marine Catfishes in regards to Loricariidae

" Almost all species are primary freshwater fishes; that is, they have almost no tolerance for salt."

"Most of the exceptions to the strictly freshwater distributions occur in Ancistrus and Hypostomus, these genera being found at times in slightly brackish waters of riverine estuaries."

So a bristlenose (Ancistrus Temmincki) can tolerate more salt that the rubbernose/rubberlip which I believe is Chaetostoma, which are from fast flowing mountain streams far from the saltwater.

I couldn't find anything in my short search in regards to medication though.

You know the biggest thing in keeping fish is to have a consistent schedule, and don't make any drastic changes to the water chemisty, temprature or the biological filtration (bacteria beds/substrate). I change water weekly normally, usually 10 gallons in my 58 and when I had that 30 setup, 10 in that too (but that's cause I fed them a bunch to get them to breed).

Also some people think a water change is completely draining all water and cleaning up the rocks and stuff, that's actually a bad thing to do because that is a drastic change. The only reason you are changing the water is to remove nitrates, the crap in the substrate is worth it to clean out to, I'm pretty sure that stuff has higher concentrations of nitrates.

If i'm unable to remove the crap off of the substrate I just change water more frequently to keep the nitrate levels down. If you're making drastic changes you're not really helping your tank become established.

If you don't want to make a lot of water changes just keep the quantity of fish down.

Most importantly though it's nice you see you are trying to get a small pleco for your small tank, kudos to you for doing the research.

I think I've heard that ich is always present and it's the stress of the fish that allow the ich to take advantage of them. Stress is caused by drastic changes among other things.

Your fish load doesn't seem to bad, your filtration seems ok, just try to keep the water good and consistant and you should be alright.

[Bigdan]

More than likely, then it was the salt that killed the Rubber-lipped plecos in my case. These plecos may have more of a sensitivity to salt than other type plecos.

I never considered the salt being the factor here.

Jack, Thank you for the info.:)

[OrionGirl]

Ich is not always present in a tank. It is a specific parasitic infection. While fish can have a sub-clinical infection, and display few if any visible signs, fish can be clean of infection, and no matter how stressed, will not develop a clinical infection. The parasite has to be present for that to happen.