um, pleco died...

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Calusa

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about a week ago, I treated the tank with algaecide. Everyone was fine. A few days later, I added an elephant nose, 2 days after that, a Baby whale... yesterday everyone looked fine, the pleco looked remarkably beautiful, he had a huge sail of a dorsal fin. I also added the last bit of algaecide into the tank because it really appeared to be helping. This morning he appeared to be stuck to a piece of marble scrap that's in the tank to provide shelter for the whale and elephant nose.... only he wasn't exactly touching it, about .25 cm from it.. so I touched him with a net, and he was dead, and his fins were gutted as if he'd been dead days. I'm not surprised, because I frequently have fish that appear to have died a week ago, yet I know I saw them fine the day before... someone just likes to pick at them a lot.

I was afraid the algaecide would harm the scaleless whale and elephant nose fish, but they're perfectly healthy!!

Did the algaecide poison the algae that the pleco ate? Why would it harm him in such a tiny (5 gallon treatment size) dose as compared to the 75 gallon treatment?

as I said, I was remarking about how healthy he looked just YESTERDAY compared to how sickly he appeared when I got him.
 
firstly sorry to hear about ure fish secondly algaecide ... i never use the stuff much as i hate alge build up fish actually eat the stuff. thus i see no harm in a well stocked tank having a little bit. its like that stuff that kills snails. alge and snails are kinda part of the eco system of a tank if some one doesnt like the look of them its kinda vanity to me that they want to loose them. as for the fish any number of things could have killed it. fish die sometimes if you think the algeside killed him i recomend you dont use it again. perhaps get a carbon filter. :/
 
I don't believe you've ever seen a tank with such horrible algae conditions before. I never have, and I've had tanks for more than 10 years. What's weird is that the tank gets absoltuely NO sunlight. I've tried scrubbing every day, nothing works... the algae falls to the sand and forms a CARPET on top of the sand. It is so inredibly gross. It was *everywhere* and if I missed a scrubbing every other day, the fish became impossible to see! A bit of algae I can understand, but it was way out of hand, and with the algaecide, one can see where the algae has been just falling off of the tank sides. I have a tank ornament that is like ruins, like Atlantis or what have you (I saw a photo of another member with the same piece), which used to be completely green, but I can see that it's white again!

The product works wonders, but it makes me wonder if it's safe for algae eaters.

I have a carbon filter.
 
just my thoughts but ditch the algae treatment put the fish in an other tank and start over.

Sorry to hear about the loss of the plec, but could you not have moved the fish out for a while , while you were treating the tank, other tank, friend, shop!
 

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