Lost a Pleco today :(

lateinningmagic

lateinningmagic

Call Me E-Man
Apr 14, 2009
711
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New York
When I came back from the LFS today after buying suction cups for airline tubing, I looked into my 20g tank and saw one dead Pleco on the bottom of the tank next to the driftwood. :(

I tested the water and it came back as:

Ammonia: .15 (Not quite 0, but not quite .25)
NitrIte: 0
NitrAte: 20

I did a large WC (50%) and gravel vacuumed. I'm sorry to say that I hadn't been doing it well enough before. Today I didn't care about making the gravel uneven and dug the gravel vac deep in the substrate. It was filthy.

Do you guys think this buildup of nasties caused the Ammonia to go up and then kill my Pleco? Or should I suspect something else?

I see one other Pleco rasping on the Filter (not unusual) and I think I saw the other one hiding under the driftwood.

The only warning I might have missed was that I did not see the Plecos much yesterday, even after putting 2 pieces of squash for them. I only saw one of them eating on it.

The other fish (Neons, Danios, and Betta) are fine.

What should I do to now?
 
That doesn't sound like it would be the culprit. I mean yeah ammonia is bad very bad. But for that low of a level to kill a pleco. Every pleco I have ever owned has been able to handle a whole lot. Do the fish all look healthy. He could have had a disease. I lost a pleco to Ich. But he was a little guy and it was pretty bad when he passed.
 
bradlgt21 said:
That doesn't sound like it would be the culprit. I mean yeah ammonia is bad very bad. But for that low of a level to kill a pleco. Every pleco I have ever owned has been able to handle a whole lot. Do the fish all look healthy. He could have had a disease. I lost a pleco to Ich. But he was a little guy and it was pretty bad when he passed.
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My Plecos are all little guys, subadults. I examined the dead Pleco and could not see anything visibly wrong with it. I already battled Ick this summer, but I got that cleared up and there haven't been any signs of it in weeks.

Hebily said:
The neons would have died from ammonia way before the pleco.
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Yeah, this is why I'm worried about my Plecos. When my tank had ick, the Neons were the first to show white spots, followed by the Plecos. Danios never got sick.

Is there a chance they could have gotten sick from eating a bad squash? I blanch them pretty well before putting them in the tank.

Also, I installed the heater that arrived today in the morning, but its not on. (I set the heater to heat to 79 degrees, current tank temperature is 82, same as my other tank which is 20 ft away and has no heater). Do you think it was contaminated or something? I ran water over it before placing it in the tank.
 
jm1212 said:
there may have been a temporary ammonia spike from the squash if it was left in for too long.
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I removed it about 24 hours after it being placed in.
 
did you test your tap water?
 
dundadundun said:
did you test your tap water?
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Not today, but this week I was curious and tested it for Ammonia.

0.

Didn't test anything else. But the NitrIte in the tank was 0 when I discovered the Pleco. Last WC was on Sunday.
 
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