10Year Old H Pleco Lying On Its Side

[TropicalUKfish]

New User Requesting Help, never tried a forum before! Just want to know if this is the end for the Pleco...

Tank size:160 litres
pH:
ammonia:
nitrite:
nitrate:
kH:
gH:
tank temp:75

Fish Symptoms (include full description including lesion, color, location, fish behavior):
Overnight change to Pleco, he is now lying on his side. Never done this before. Colour still dark brown, no cloudy appearance. Tank still looks very clean. Otherfish still ok.
Pleco eats Hikari wafers placed in tube into hollow artificial log, to stop Dollars getting it first!

Volume and Frequency of water changes: 50% every 2 months. External Eheim Ecco 2234 filter with the brown balls substrate. Use Fresh Start tap water conditioner every water change.
Last water change December 17th

Chemical Additives or Media in your tank:None.

Tank inhabitants: 1x10 year old Pleco(14"), 2x6 year old SilverDollars(8"), 1x5 year old Golden Tetra, 1 x 5 year old 3 Spot Gourami.

Recent additions to your tank (living or decoration): Absolutely no changes or additions to tank in the last month. Gravel Bottom, 1 artificial plant, 1 artificial log, that's it. The pleco destroyed everything else years ago, or just moves everything overnight....

Exposure to chemicals: none.

 

[fluttermoth]

It doesn't sound too good for the plec to be honest

Your tank is quite heavily stocked; you should be doing a lot more water changes than you are; you could try doing a 25% water change now and see if it helps at all. I would advise larger than that, but in tanks that haven't been having enough, the fish can get used to the poor water and be shocked by too large a change.

Sorry I can't give you better news

 

[SensesFail]

It doesn't sound too good for the plec to be honest

Your tank is quite heavily stocked; you should be doing a lot more water changes than you are; you could try doing a 25% water change now and see if it helps at all. I would advise larger than that, but in tanks that haven't been having enough, the fish can get used to the poor water and be shocked by too large a change.

Sorry I can't give you better news

+1 I'd do the water change. I usualy change 50l twice s week im my 190l tank. Which is probs excessive but have it overstocked to limit aggression. Maybe up your water changes? But gradually like flutter said to limit shock and stress?

I'll keep my fingers crossed for the fella

 

[TropicalUKfish]

One week later and the pleco has made a full recovery, somehow.... All I did was a 30% water change and cleaned out the filter canisters!!! Would the swim bladder have suffered if the water had been bad in any way??

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Poor water quality can cause swimbladder problems amongst many other problems (in fact water quality problems are one of the no.1 root causes for a lot of fish illnesses & deaths). Your average tank cleaning should go along the lines of;

1. 15-60% water change with dechlorinator once a week, or 30% water change on average (15% for very lightly stocked tanks and 60% for heavily stocked tanks, or twice weekly small/medium sized water changes for heavily stocked tanks etc).
Always use dechlorinator on the new water going into the tank to neautralise the chlorine & heavy metals in it.

2. Clean filters in old water taken from the tank during water changes before being discarded (never used water straight from the tap as it has chlorine in it). Clean filters regularly enough to ensure constant good flow from them, but make sure not to overclean the filters sponges (i.e. not sparkling clean- just clean them roughly leaving a bit of muck left in them, as over-cleaning the filter sponges can damage/drastically lower the levels the beneficial nitrifying bacteria inside them).
Most filters need to be cleaned once every 2-5 weeks, it depends.

3. Clean tank substrate every 1-2 weeks (once a week for gravel as it traps a lot of waste, once a week or fortnight for sand- sand needs to be swished up every now and then to keep levels of anaerobic bacteria to a min).

4. Check everything else is in good working order on a regular basis (i.e. heater is not getting limescale or algae build-up on it etc).

So basically your average tank cleaning regime should always include a once weekly water change and possibly more . Please check out this link for understanding & maintaining good water quality in your aquarium (the nitrogen cycle, cycling tanks etc) if you are not already familiar with it ;

http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?/topic/277264-beginners-resource-center/

 

[SensesFail]

Poor water quality can cause swimbladder problems amongst many other problems (in fact water quality problems are one of the no.1 root causes for a lot of fish illnesses & deaths). Your average tank cleaning should go along the lines of;

1. 15-60% water change with dechlorinator once a week, or 30% water change on average (15% for very lightly stocked tanks and 60% for heavily stocked tanks, or twice weekly small/medium sized water changes for heavily stocked tanks etc).
Always use dechlorinator on the new water going into the tank to neautralise the chlorine & heavy metals in it.

2. Clean filters in old water taken from the tank during water changes before being discarded (never used water straight from the tap as it has chlorine in it). Clean filters regularly enough to ensure constant good flow from them, but make sure not to overclean the filters sponges (i.e. not sparkling clean- just clean them roughly leaving a bit of muck left in them, as over-cleaning the filter sponges can damage/drastically lower the levels the beneficial nitrifying bacteria inside them).
Most filters need to be cleaned once every 2-5 weeks, it depends.

3. Clean tank substrate every 1-2 weeks (once a week for gravel as it traps a lot of waste, once a week or fortnight for sand- sand needs to be swished up every now and then to keep levels of anaerobic bacteria to a min).

4. Check everything else is in good working order on a regular basis (i.e. heater is not getting limescale or algae build-up on it etc).

So basically your average tank cleaning regime should always include a once weekly water change and possibly more . Please check out this link for understanding & maintaining good water quality in your aquarium (the nitrogen cycle, cycling tanks etc) if you are not already familiar with it ;

http/www.fishforum...esource-center/

When you do your filter clean would you pour the water from the canister out and refill with the current tank water straight away before adding the fresh water? In my 190L tank which is overstocked with african cichlids i Carry out 60L water changes twice a week once on a wednesday morning and again on sat mornings doing the filter clean 3-4 weeks.

Sometimes ill even change 60L on one occasion then change a further 40 just in case lol so averaging 120-150L a week change may be too excessive like! But only running one canister.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

When you do your filter clean would you pour the water from the canister out and refill with the current tank water straight away before adding the fresh water?

Lots of people do these things in different orders but it doesn't seem to particularly matter what order things are done in (water change & filter cleaning) as long as the new water added to the tank has been dechlorinated .

In my 190L tank which is overstocked with african cichlids i Carry out 60L water changes twice a week once on a wednesday morning and again on sat mornings doing the filter clean 3-4 weeks.

Sometimes ill even change 60L on one occasion then change a further 40 just in case lol so averaging 120-150L a week change may be too excessive like! But only running one canister.

That is a lot of water to be changing but it is probably fine. The only issue to doing overly large water changes is that you may upset the levels of beneficial bacteria in the tanks filter (but you are more likely to do this by over-cleaning the filter) or cause stress to the fish (like temperature shock if the water temp was not matchy closely with that of the water already in the tank etc).
If in doubt test the tank for ammonia & nitrites a few hours after doing the water change- if the beneficial bacteria hasn't been damaged then it will be functioning normally, doing 0 ammonia 0 nitrites and nitrates betwen 1-40 (though due to the regularity & size of water changes in your tanks i would expect nitrates to be very low, which is fine) . Some people can cause their tanks to "mini-cycle" by over-cleaning their tanks.

But for the most part a lot of fish can handle large water changes fine- some even enjoy them, particularly those which come from dry/wet season type habitats (like many catfish, which enjoy a nice slightly cooler water change). But the vast majority of the time it is never necessary to water change more than 60% of the water in any single go (i would only advise doing more if someone for had for example got a chemical contaminent in the tank that was killing off their fish and drastic action was needed to immediately clear the water quality etc) v .

 

[Bigdaddypuff]

Man i have glad he had a good recovery, i have a 15 Inch Pleco myself ;-)

 

[TropicalUKfish]

Thanks very much for all the replies; I wasn't expecting that!! I have always added Fresh Start to the tap water to 'clean it up'. Maybe the pleco is getting older now and is slightly more sensitive to the water quality. I always hoover the gravel whilst doing the water change.
I've had an idea which may improve the water quality some more:
Currently have 1 x Eheim Ecco 2234 which pulls water from underneath sub-gravel plate.
Would it be worth adding a second unit which just pulls water straight from the tank a few inches above the gravel?? This second unit could be more mechanical than biological.

I will take on board all the useful comments and increase the water change frequency. Overall I think the opinion is to remove between 25 - 50% at any one time.
Tank is 160 litres with 1 pleco 2 dollars 1 gourami 1 tetra, so not really overstocked??
If I took a picture you would be surprised how empty it is!!