New Bristle Nose Plecs 1 Out Of 3 Died

[xxBarneyxx]

Well today I went out and got 16 Silver tip tetras and 3 Bristle nose plecs, not sure exact species as they wherent labeled.

Floated all the fish for an hour and removed 5ml of bag water and replaced 5ml of tank water about once a minute (which means pretty much all the water being changed).

ammonia=0ppm
Nitrite=0ppm
Nitrate=<10ppm
O2=between 9-11ppm ( I have a hard time tell the colours of this test kit apart but it was not less then 8ppm for sure)
PH= 7.2
GH= 14°d
KH= 6°d

The first pleco was dead within the first hour (It might have been dead out of the bag but i had the lights off and couldnt see where they went.
The other two have not moved very much and seem to be breathing really heavy.

The Silvertips are fine and over the last hour have regained their colour and are now busy "sparring" and cruising around looking for food.

Yesterday I put in 12 Cherry shrimp and as far as I can tell they are all ok (most of them are pretty well hidden though so very hard to tell).

Tank was fishless cycled and has been running about 4 weeks.

Im thinking there are maybe a couple of possible causes:

My tank PH and KH is a little lower then local tap water and the change killed it (possible but I think I introduced them slowly enough). If the shrimp surived though I'm suprised the Bristle nosed plecs had a problem?

They got injured when they where being fished out? The guy kind squshed a couple with the net when he was getting them out! I also then had an hours driver back to my house. They are very, very small (less then 1 inch) so maybe just the stress of being captured and transported was too much.

I put a dose of stress zyme in the tank but dont know what to do with the other two guys. I dont want to do a partial water change at this point for fear of making it worse (yet another change in PH and hardness). Also as there is no detectable ammonia or nitrite and very low nitrate I dont think this would help.

Any other thoughts of why this little guy would have died?

 

[xxBarneyxx]

i think the other two are ok. They both sat still for a long time but are now both bouncing around over the glass eating up the algae. They both seem to be breathing very heavy still though, is this normal for them? (never kept any plecs before).

 

[-germ-]

I'm not sure on O2 ppm, what does it say on the chart?
Possibly hypoxia if their gill rate is fast. I'd certainly stimulate the waters surface in some way, just in case. Does your filter agitate the waters surface?
Could have been a result of stress, may have been feeling sensitive from the move and the acclimatisation killed it.
Sorry i can't be of more help, but TBH if there were no physical symptoms i'd guess it was just in poor condition or as a result of the move. Either way remain vigilant, just in case and keep the tank lights and keep away from the tank yourself off to give them time to settle.
Have you provided plenty of cover/hiding places?

 

[xxBarneyxx]

I'm not sure on O2 ppm, what does it say on the chart?
Possibly hypoxia if their gill rate is fast. I'd certainly stimulate the waters surface in some way, just in case. Does your filter agitate the waters surface?
Could have been a result of stress, may have been feeling sensitive from the move and the acclimatisation killed it.
Sorry i can't be of more help, but TBH if there were no physical symptoms i'd guess it was just in poor condition or as a result of the move. Either way remain vigilant, just in case and keep the tank lights and keep away from the tank yourself off to give them time to settle.
Have you provided plenty of cover/hiding places?

O2 should be at around 8ppm or higher so that is ok (mine is closer to 11 then to 8 ).
The tank is about 85% planted with lots of little cave bits and hiding spaces (pics in sig). They are both moving around n0ow (one is still on the glass but the other has vanished into the undergrowth ).

I have a feeling the dead one might have been dead in the bag, it was right underneath where I released them. Sad to lose him but I'm glad that there is nothing wrong with the tank and the rest are all ok.

I need to get some wood in there for them now.

 

[-germ-]

Hope you don't suffer any further problems with them!!!!
As i said (hope i don't sound patronising) keep an extra close eye on them for the time being....

Anyway good luck

 

[xxBarneyxx]

Hope you don't suffer any further problems with them!!!!
As i said (hope i don't sound patronising) keep an extra close eye on them for the time being....

Anyway good luck

Bad news. All 3 now seem to be dead (can't find the third one) .

The silvertips are all doing fine, as are the Cherry shrimp I have in there. Have been checking the water twice a day and have seen no ammonia or nitrite and nitrate is actually now hardly registering on my test kit. Really do not know why these 3 died

 

[-germ-]

How old were they when you got them?
You should try speaking to your LFS or if you know local fish keepers try and find someone else who bought some from the same batch and see if they encountered problems.
Of course, i'm not saying it isn't something directly related to your tank alone.
But...
I had a bad batch of WCMM from the LFS, 2 of 11 survived. Dying off with all sorts of symptoms; one apparently had comlunaris, one died after pop-eye etc. Obviously bacterial in my case though. But after locating others who had purchased WCMM around the same time, i found theirs had dies in pretty much the same way.
If you can, i'd look into this, if you can find other people who have had deaths from the same batch i'd demand my money back and warn them about their poor supply.
Anyhow;

Extremely sorry for your losses, i hope you appreciate with the lack of symptoms there was nothing i could suggest.

 

[xxBarneyxx]

Yeah with nothing obvious it was kind of hard to work out what was wrong or find a solution, I was just hoping there was something I overlooked. I'm going to give the store a call tomorrow and have a chat. I'm not sure how old they where but I'm pretty sure they where REALLY young (less then 1 inch, including the tail).

Thanks a lot for the replies anyway, it is appreciated

 

[Spooky76]

Sorry to hear about that - gutted for you

Tank looks very nice by the way..just hope its a dodgy batch of fish.

I did have problems with fish from a particular store that I wont name just in case, but when I tested their water the PH was 8.2 on my electronic reader, which is odd, considering im 3 mile away and mines 7 out the tap. Sometimes I suppose if the water is that far from yours, an hours climatising wont help.

Anyway - not much help but sorry you lost them.