2 X Dead Royal Whiptail Pleco's

[martinking]

Hiya All,

I cycled my tank for 127 days and all is going well other than the fact that my 2 Royal Whiptail Pleco's have died, they were happy moving around and eating and pooing well. They were only a few weeks old.

Water is near as I can get it to perfect, 7.4, 0, 0, 20-40. Temp is 25-26. The tank has 6 Black Phantoms, 6 Red Phantoms and 10 Cardinals, which are all happy.

The tank is cleaned weekly (I do half at a time as to not remove all the algae) I also provide Algae Wafers twice a week.

The only strange thing I noticed was the day before they died they both rested on the heater for a substantial amount of time. Then I just found one at the bottom of the tank, only strange thing is a slightly yellowish tinge on the belly.

Then two days later the other rests on the heater and then ends up in basically the same place as the other one did. With the same yellowish tinge on the belly again. Any Ideas?

Cheers

 

[WILDER]

Did the yellow tinge look like gold dusting or fluffy looking like cotton wool. Or just a yellow tinge with excess mucas.
Any signs of darting, erratic swimming, excess mucas, laboured breathing, flicking and rubbing.

 

[martinking]

Hiya Wilder,

There didn't seem to be any strange behaviour before they died, except for staying on the heater for a bit. The yellow tinge was under the skin on the belly, it was like a gold or dark yellow colour. Any ideas? I just want to know whether it's something I have done?

Cheers

 

[WILDER]

Not sure if I'm honest.
How are the other fish acting.

 

[martinking]

They all seen fine!

 

[WILDER]

Ok. Good Luck.
Yellow tinges can be anything from velvet, to columnaris.