chazzi13

my pleco died a couple of days ago. (i found the remains.) i looked on the pleco profile and it said that you should feed it algae wafers when you turn the lights out but i did the complete oppisite! i would feed it first thing when i turn the lights on! it seemed healthy and happy but would this be what i did wrong. i want to get another one but i want to know if this was the likely cause of its death.

sirdarksol

Unlikely, unless the other fish in the tank were eating the algae wafer before your pleco could get to it.

What size tank do you have? How big was your pleco? How old was your pleco? What other fish (if any) were in the tank? What are your ammonia, nitrate, and nitrite readings?

Sabi

And what type of pleco was it?

chazzi13

it was a bristlenose pleco. the tank is 216 litres (about 55 gallons i think). the other fish i have are dwarf gouramis, bala sharks, cory cats and neon tetras. i brought another bristlenose today along with some swords. the lady at the pet store said these fish were fine to put together. the pleco that died and the one i brought now are both about 5cm long

Callum The Cat

do u have any drift wood in there they can surivive without feeding if u have driftwood because they feed of it mine do i don't feed them anything haven't had anydeaths

Rock On Callum!

chazzi13

no i dont have driftwood. dont have any room to put any in and its quite expensive where i live. i am just going to try what the profile says and feed it algae wafers when i turn the light off and see how that goes i guess

sirdarksol

What are the ammonia, nitrate, and nitrite readings in the tank? I'm not positive because I don't know the numbers and sizes of the fish you have, but with the types you have, you've got the potential to have gone beyond a safe bioload for the tank. Plecos can sometimes suffer most from this, because they sit at the bottom, soaking it up.

chazzi13

i check the readings weekly and they are all always fine. maybe just an unhealthy fish. i only had it for about a month before it died

FishnFry

Driftwood is highly recommended when housing BNs as vegetable roughage keeps their gut in working order thus a bogwood is a valuable addition to this. You can feed them some zucchini, cukes, canned beans to male sure they get lots of vegetable matter.

Also you can find driftwood on rivers, lakes and beaches (just make sure it's safe to put in your tank). You don't have to pay high-priced driftwood.

MagpieTear

Yup, just plop it in a bucket of tap water to rinse it to pull any chemicals or critters it may have picked up in the river or lake before you found it. Just swap the water in the bucket every few days for two or three weeks, and it should be fine.

I need to worry about zebra mussel spawn on stuff I find locally, as well as any old contaminants from the steel mills (they all closed down when I was a kid 2 or three decades ago, but I don't want their leftovers in my tank) on any driftwood I find on the Youghiogheny or Monongahela rivers) So I hit the first bucket hard with chlorine to kill any parasites and invertebrates, and the subsequent water changes are to basically get rid of the bulk of the chlorine.

My Pleco Has taken my large piece of driftwood almost in half over the three years I've had him. I never knew about the cucumber bit until I found this board last week, I'm going to have to give that a shot...

Sabi

I get my wood from the farms!

chazzi13

unfortunatly i dont get to see the beach very often but i have access to a few rivers. we are in heavy drought at the moment. would this have any effect on the driftwood?