Baby Plec Died Suddenly!

[paige]

well yesterday a spotted one of my guppies had white spot so my mum said i was best to put some of this stuff in that battled against all kinds of bad water (deseased water) so my mum put 5ml of that in the next day i find one of my 3-4cm pleco dead when i found him he had all if fins up as if he was flaring and was on the skull he had also gone white on one side, my question is should i take my other (alive) pleco out into another tank or would that just make it worse, or will he be fine??
Thanx for any help

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

You need to find out what exactly what you put into your tank, does your mum know the name of it? Do you have any recent test results for ammonia, nitrites and nitrates? If not i would go test your water imediatly and post the stats back here .

 

[Durbkat]

Was it aquarium salt or some medicine with salt in it because that can kill a pleco?

 

[paige]

one sec i'll go get the tube

ok on the tube it says Stress coat, i'v also got some pictures of the dead pleco (horrible i know but i might help you) but i gotta find some mopre batteries so i can load them on my computer

ok here are the pictures there not that clear as i have taken him out of the tank and into a small container

 

[Durbkat]

That may be the cause because stress coat is for like emergencys only if a fish jumps out of the tank and you can't use salt on it (like with a pleco or other scaleless fish) and all stress coat does it make the fish have more slime on its slime coat and it covers the gill plates making it hard or impossible for the fish to breath so maybe thats what killed your pleco. For ich (whitespot) I would recommend a medicene called "NOX-ICH" and it treats ich. What size tank is it? Your suppost to do 1 drop for every 1g so say if its like a 10g or something,for example, you would do 5 drops instead of 10 drops because it says on the bottle do half dose for scaleless fish (plecos) for 3 days and raise temp 1 degree an hour till it gets to around 80F to 82F then if the fish still has ich do the same treatment again but skip a day before starting the treatment again. Go here http/www.photobucket.com and upload the pics then make them alot smaller than that because its to big. lol I can't make it out really because its really blurry and big. Are you going to keep it or toss it out?

 

[paige]

OW!! sorry that the pictures are sooo big.

ok thanx but should i put my other pleco in a different tank??

My tank is 2ft.ow and do you think my guppies will be ok?? if its gonna be nearly impossible for them to breathe

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

OW!! sorry that the pictures are sooo big.

ok thanx but should i put my other pleco in a different tank??

Lol i think you may need to make them a tad smaller .
Stresscoat shouldn't kill a fish, especially a plec like a sailfin or common plec. Try and get some test results for ammonia, nitrites and nitrates- i've never used NOX-ICH so i am not sure on this, but some meds harm the beneficial bacterial filtration and cause the tank to cycle you see. What and how much were you feeding the plecs on average? Its imposible to say what killed the plec just by looking at its body as small fish decompose very quickly in tank water, going white is just a symptom of decomposing.

 

[paige]

i'v already uploaded them on photobucket, what do you mean?? am i gonna keep the dead 1?? or toss it?? or the one thats alive?? and i still need to know weither to take the other one out of my tank into my sisters or something because i dont want them both to die

 

[Durbkat]

You will need a bigger tank for the pleco because they can get from 18" up to 2 feet in length. Jusy do a vacum cleaning and they should be fine. Do they appear the be breathing faster than normal? I meant are you going to keep the dead one or toss it?

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

OW!! sorry that the pictures are sooo big.

ok thanx but should i put my other pleco in a different tank??

Lol i think you may need to make them a tad smaller .
Stresscoat shouldn't kill a fish, especially a plec like a sailfin or common plec. Try and get some test results for ammonia, nitrites and nitrates- i've never used NOX-ICH so i am not sure on this, but some meds harm the beneficial bacterial filtration and cause the tank to cycle you see. What and how much were you feeding the plecs on average? Its imposible to say what killed the plec just by looking at its body as small fish decompose very quickly in tank water, going white is just a symptom of decomposing.

edit: Stresscoat is just a type of dechlorinator that helps incourage healthy protective slime layer growth on fish, the guppys should be fine with it .

 

[paige]

feeding well to tell you the truth i dont really feed them much i only feed them about 3 times a week or so and i give the plecs about 5 of the little plec tabs (there the realli small round ones not the big ones) i would only give them around 3 but the guppies eat at least 2 of them

how could i keep the dead one??lol. well my sister said that the other pleco did seem to be breathing faster than normal i'll go look again i didnt notice that he/she was.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

feeding well to tell you the truth i dont really feed them much i only feed them about 3 times a week or so and i give the plecs about 5 of the little plec tabs (there the realli small round ones not the big ones) i would only give them around 3 but the guppies eat at least 2 of them

how could i keep the dead one??lol. well my sister said that the other pleco did seem to be breathing faster than normal i'll go look again i didnt notice that he/she was.

Im afraid thats too little food for a baby/young plec especially if there wasn't an abundant algae growth in the tank, its fairly plausable it just starved to death im afraid. You should really feed them once a day when they are young as common and sailfin plecs can grow an inch a month in their first year, or however much they'll eat a day within 30mins. Its still fairly likely though that somthing else killed it- if you cannot get any water test results for ammonia, nitrites and nitrates today, do a 30% water change with dechlorinator for the mean time .

 

[paige]

I carnt really see how he's breatheing but he looks as he usually does so i think he's ok.

 

[Durbkat]

I would suggest feeding your fish more often because I feed my fish everyday and I give my pleco one whole sinking algae wafer everyother day. This is what they are and how big they are http/www.vitavet.com/Merchant2/graphics/...0001/039398.jpg

 

[paige]

but there's loads of algea on the back of the tank i leave that for them and the stones are a bit grean

so i really dont think he starved to death he gets pleanty of food with all the algea on the glass