cowgirluntamed
Fish Herder
Ok, I don't think this is an emergency as of yet so I decided to post it here. Hopefully you can follow my story on Spots, my female bristlenose pleco. I believe she's about 2 years old now I think....almost 4 inches in length. She lives in a 20 gallon high tank with 3 glowlight tetras and 7 black neon tetras. I haven't tested the water just recently but it's normally stable around 0-0.25 ammonia, 0 nitrite, 10-20 nitrates and ph is 8.2. The gh and kh seem to fluctuate a tiny bit but stay in a general range(I can't think of exact numbers right now, but on the paper that tells how to test, it says my water can be good for cichlids so yeah....tetras seem to be doing REALLY well though, even breeding behavior every now and then so I take that as a good sign). Temperature is 77 degrees.
Well, a while back, my HOB filter broke down. I had a sponge filter handy so slapped that in their quick and kept up with water changes until it settled(I also changed the substrate from gravel to sand as well, so sort of ruined the bio filter.) Actually, my HOB was up and running and the sand is what ruined it! Lol. Then I put the sponge filter in there. Glowlights lost color and that's when I knew my water quality was going down but it just did a mini cycle with my water changes so everything got better. Anyway, I wanted a canister filter so I bought a SunSun 402b. It's a 3 stage filter(3 baskets) with a 9w UV sterilizer(I don't use this but thought it would be good to have "just in case"), 265 gph made for up to a 75 gallon tank. I set this up nicely and put it to where the spray bar was angled up toward the top of the water. (basically pushing water across the top like the HOB filter did)
Now, during this time...one of my dogs got into my fish food....ate all of my pleco's algae wafers as well as a bunch of freeze dried stuff and some flakes. Yay....so...I got online where I ordered the food before(they LOVE seachem's nutri diet tropical flakes...) and they didn't have the algae wafers that I usually bought at petsmart, so I got some Hikari mini's. WAY smaller than I thought they'd be but I gave them a try. No go....So she didn't eat for a week then, until I got her regular Aqueon Algae wafers. She ate one. I feed her every three to four days(oh yeah, she's got driftwood in there to chew on as well, and her castle that she HAS to have...that's another story...lol...).
Well, on March 29th I put in some floating water sprite. It seemed to only stay in one small corner away from the light, so I moved the spray barn down a bit to where it was pointing straight out, so not to the top any more. This is when I noticed a slight change in Spots. I believe I did a 25% water change before I added the plants, did not treat the plants with anything either. So, I really didn't think too much of Spots less active behavior and the fact she was hanging all over the driftwood. (I think this next part started earlier than this behavior...but she had found a spot under one of the pieces of driftwood that was angled towards the bottom and she would lay on her back without being attached to the driftwood. *shrugs*). I did get a bit off with my water changes....So the tank kinda got a bit dirty and I noticed those little white buggy things crawling around on stuff. I think those are copepods? Can't remember. I've had them before and they didn't seem to bother any body.
So...Spots started hanging out on this driftwood a LOT more. And then I noticed she was starting to "twitch" her tail and a fin a bit. I did not see anything at all on her. She also did not want to eat at all. It's been 2 weeks I believe since she's ate any thing. 4 days ago I did a 50% water change. Spots was breathing heavier it seemed. When I did this I repositioned the spray bar to point towards the back of the tank and slightly down, to help my water sprite not be in one corner. I waited a day, and Spots seemed to breathe even heavier. She also wanted to stay next to the heater, and was sort of leaning against it. She couldn't hardly keep a suction to the glass. (The heater is her "safe" place at times as she likes to try to change her spots to match it, how she got her name lol. She's done this since she was little when I got her.) I also thought I saw a really really thin, what looked like a hair to me, coming out of her uh..cloaca? Don't know what it's called in fish...lol. It's not there now. I think it was just a hair....I have dogs and cats in the house, and myself...so it's hard to keep it out of the tank all the time.
Suffice it to say, the day after I did another 50% water change. (I forgot to add Prime the first time, but it was no worries as I'm on well water and don't have chlorine/chloromines). I did add 20 drops this time though to make up for it. The only other thing I could think of doing was to change the spray bar back to the original position I had it in in the first place just to "see" if it would help. I also took out the castle and driftwood and scrubbed them mostly clean and put them back in. So, not too long after that(maybe 10 minutes?) she went back to her castle! Oh yeah...she also burned her back and top fin on the heater as well during this time. Anyway...I gave her yesterday to see how she was. I missed her coming out of the castle and she was back by the heater. However, this time she was a lot higher on the glass, laying flat against it with nice suction, and not breathing heavy anymore! So, this morning I tried an algae wafer hoping my problems would be over.....no luck.
*sighs*
She's STILL by the heater and when I go over there I think I stress her a bit and she starts to breathe a little heavy again. I don't want Spots to starve to death. I have to get her to eat...but how?? She seems way better stress level wise now but something is still wrong as she won't eat and is still not swimming around much. She usually goes all over the tank and isn't scared of me a bit. All the tetras seem perfectly fine too so it's just Spots. Oh and she usually is top notch with keeping algae in check. I started to get either more diatom algae(though this tank has been going for 2 years with same decor), or maybe brown spot? If that's a type of algae anyway. It was on the castle and it was on my glass in brown "spots" so yeah...(I think this was due to be playing with the RGB lights on my new LED light I got..not necessarily her not keeping the glass clean).
I want to get her to eat again...any suggestions? I've never tried any vegetables...always just done the algae wafers with her along with her driftwood. I'm willing to try almost any thing as long as it's not too difficult. Lol. Oh and she doesn't seem skinny either, still looks nice and plump to me. I can get a picture if you want as well as new test results if you want as well. Please help! (Also, if you think this needs to be in the emergency section, please go ahead and move it or let me know to repost it there. I just didn't feel it was too much of an emergency just yet but could be soon if she doesn't eat). Any help is greatly appreciated!!!
Well, a while back, my HOB filter broke down. I had a sponge filter handy so slapped that in their quick and kept up with water changes until it settled(I also changed the substrate from gravel to sand as well, so sort of ruined the bio filter.) Actually, my HOB was up and running and the sand is what ruined it! Lol. Then I put the sponge filter in there. Glowlights lost color and that's when I knew my water quality was going down but it just did a mini cycle with my water changes so everything got better. Anyway, I wanted a canister filter so I bought a SunSun 402b. It's a 3 stage filter(3 baskets) with a 9w UV sterilizer(I don't use this but thought it would be good to have "just in case"), 265 gph made for up to a 75 gallon tank. I set this up nicely and put it to where the spray bar was angled up toward the top of the water. (basically pushing water across the top like the HOB filter did)
Now, during this time...one of my dogs got into my fish food....ate all of my pleco's algae wafers as well as a bunch of freeze dried stuff and some flakes. Yay....so...I got online where I ordered the food before(they LOVE seachem's nutri diet tropical flakes...) and they didn't have the algae wafers that I usually bought at petsmart, so I got some Hikari mini's. WAY smaller than I thought they'd be but I gave them a try. No go....So she didn't eat for a week then, until I got her regular Aqueon Algae wafers. She ate one. I feed her every three to four days(oh yeah, she's got driftwood in there to chew on as well, and her castle that she HAS to have...that's another story...lol...).
Well, on March 29th I put in some floating water sprite. It seemed to only stay in one small corner away from the light, so I moved the spray barn down a bit to where it was pointing straight out, so not to the top any more. This is when I noticed a slight change in Spots. I believe I did a 25% water change before I added the plants, did not treat the plants with anything either. So, I really didn't think too much of Spots less active behavior and the fact she was hanging all over the driftwood. (I think this next part started earlier than this behavior...but she had found a spot under one of the pieces of driftwood that was angled towards the bottom and she would lay on her back without being attached to the driftwood. *shrugs*). I did get a bit off with my water changes....So the tank kinda got a bit dirty and I noticed those little white buggy things crawling around on stuff. I think those are copepods? Can't remember. I've had them before and they didn't seem to bother any body.
So...Spots started hanging out on this driftwood a LOT more. And then I noticed she was starting to "twitch" her tail and a fin a bit. I did not see anything at all on her. She also did not want to eat at all. It's been 2 weeks I believe since she's ate any thing. 4 days ago I did a 50% water change. Spots was breathing heavier it seemed. When I did this I repositioned the spray bar to point towards the back of the tank and slightly down, to help my water sprite not be in one corner. I waited a day, and Spots seemed to breathe even heavier. She also wanted to stay next to the heater, and was sort of leaning against it. She couldn't hardly keep a suction to the glass. (The heater is her "safe" place at times as she likes to try to change her spots to match it, how she got her name lol. She's done this since she was little when I got her.) I also thought I saw a really really thin, what looked like a hair to me, coming out of her uh..cloaca? Don't know what it's called in fish...lol. It's not there now. I think it was just a hair....I have dogs and cats in the house, and myself...so it's hard to keep it out of the tank all the time.
Suffice it to say, the day after I did another 50% water change. (I forgot to add Prime the first time, but it was no worries as I'm on well water and don't have chlorine/chloromines). I did add 20 drops this time though to make up for it. The only other thing I could think of doing was to change the spray bar back to the original position I had it in in the first place just to "see" if it would help. I also took out the castle and driftwood and scrubbed them mostly clean and put them back in. So, not too long after that(maybe 10 minutes?) she went back to her castle! Oh yeah...she also burned her back and top fin on the heater as well during this time. Anyway...I gave her yesterday to see how she was. I missed her coming out of the castle and she was back by the heater. However, this time she was a lot higher on the glass, laying flat against it with nice suction, and not breathing heavy anymore! So, this morning I tried an algae wafer hoping my problems would be over.....no luck.
*sighs*She's STILL by the heater and when I go over there I think I stress her a bit and she starts to breathe a little heavy again. I don't want Spots to starve to death. I have to get her to eat...but how?? She seems way better stress level wise now but something is still wrong as she won't eat and is still not swimming around much. She usually goes all over the tank and isn't scared of me a bit. All the tetras seem perfectly fine too so it's just Spots. Oh and she usually is top notch with keeping algae in check. I started to get either more diatom algae(though this tank has been going for 2 years with same decor), or maybe brown spot? If that's a type of algae anyway. It was on the castle and it was on my glass in brown "spots" so yeah...(I think this was due to be playing with the RGB lights on my new LED light I got..not necessarily her not keeping the glass clean).
I want to get her to eat again...any suggestions? I've never tried any vegetables...always just done the algae wafers with her along with her driftwood. I'm willing to try almost any thing as long as it's not too difficult. Lol. Oh and she doesn't seem skinny either, still looks nice and plump to me. I can get a picture if you want as well as new test results if you want as well. Please help! (Also, if you think this needs to be in the emergency section, please go ahead and move it or let me know to repost it there. I just didn't feel it was too much of an emergency just yet but could be soon if she doesn't eat). Any help is greatly appreciated!!!
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