My plecos need some help

[Taylorp]

Hey guys unfortunately my 1st post isn't a happy one. I have a 90g tank that is well established about 2 years old it houses a few geophagus angles and a few rose line sharks as well as several plecos. I have a large green phantom a snowball and a few small bushy nose for over a year. I recently added 2 small rubber lip plecos and I fear they have brought some type of bacterial infection into my tank. I have lost the rubber lips and 2 small bushy nose they seem to be breathing very hard and have redness on there gills. Other than that there is no other visable signs of illness on the fish. It has only affected the plecos the rest of the fish are unaffected.

The tank has frequent water changes minimum once a week.

The water parameters are as follows
Ph 7.4
Ammonia .25ppm or less
Nitrite 0ppm
Nitrate 5ppm or less

Does anyone have a good medicine that is readily available that I can probably find locally to treat this infection. I'm no expert but I'm guessing bacterial or a parasite.

Thanks in advance I would really hate to loose anymore fish, very stressful part of the hobby.

[bekateen]

Hi Taylorp,

Sorry to hear about your rubberlips, and the potential harm to the other fish.

Yes it could be bacterial. But I also notice you are getting positive ammonia readings sometimes? I'd start advising by telling you to make a big water change (70% or so); repeat this weekly until the fish get better, but don't do it more often because frequent water changes can be just as stressful as bad water. Clean water itself may be enough to help the fish recover with out adding meds. You should also be able to raise the temperature a few degrees F to help stimulate the fishes' natural defenses, although I didn't notice you mention the current temperature in the tank, so my advice on temp may differ depending on current temperature.

Second, you should visit some LFS in your area - I see you are from Sacramento. There are several good stores around you: Aquarium Depot, Aqua Life Aquarium, AquaWorkz, and Exotic Aquarium to name a few. Talk to them about what antibiotic products they sell.

One product I've used is Hikari's BiFuran+ and I've had some success with it.

SeaChem has a variety of antibiotics that your LFS might stock, such as KanaPlex and NeoPlex, but I don't know which would be best. I've read that the SeaChem company has really good customer service - if you contact them (http://seachem.com/contact-support.php) and describe the disease symptoms, they will recommend a particular med for you to try (if your LFS has it available).

Not intending to make you feel bad, but I've had some really rotten luck myself with rubberlips bought in the Central California area; mine were all from PetSmart stores. I had mine in quarantine, so fortunately other fish were not compromised, but the experience reaffirmed to me the value of always quarantining new fish. You can read about my experiences and the meds I used (mainly anti-ich and anti-fungal meds, all to no avail on the rubber lips) here: Mystery Chaetostoma, impulse buy at PetSmart.

Fortunately, bristlenoses are tougher than rubberlips. If they aren't too small and too far gone, the BN's should recover. I'm actually more concerned about your green phantom and snowball.

Good luck,
Eric

P.S., Being that you live in the Sacramento area, have you ever attended a meeting of the Sacramento Aquarium Society? We usually meet the first Saturday of each month at 7pm at a Round Table Pizza on Greenback at Madison in Folsom (http://sacramentoaquariumsociety.info). Admission is always free, and you get 10% your food order from Round Table while attending the meetings.

We just had a meeting yesterday, but there's always next month. And there are several people in the club who specialize in plecos, so you can find lots of knowledegable support. I hope you can attend some time.

Cheers, Eric

[Taylorp]

Appricate the response my tank is currently 78 degrees what would you suggest rasing it to.

[Taylorp]

Also I believe the ammonia level to be less than 25ppm just when looking at the color chart it's probably a little over 0ppm

[bekateen]

I'm not too familiar with roseline sharks, so I don't know how warm they can get for extended time. And you didn't mention what kind of Geophagus you have, but most of them can get warmer, and so can the angels. I'd probably start by raising the tank to 82F for a few days. That should help.

But make sure oxygenation is high because as temperature increases, the ability of water to hold oxygen decreases. Add an extra air pump with an airstone to increase oxygen levels.

Cheers, Eric

[dw1305]

Hi all,

I have lost the rubber lips and 2 small bushy nose they seem to be breathing very hard and have redness on there gills. Other than that there is no other visable signs of illness on the fish. It has only affected the plecos the rest of the fish are unaffected.

Ph 7.4
Ammonia .25ppm or less
Nitrite 0ppm
Nitrate 5ppm or less

I'm sorry to hear of your losses.

Unfortunately there are plenty of posts on PlanetCatfish where people have lost Rubber-lip plecos soon after adding them to their tank, and you may never know what the reason was.

A thought occurs that

Chaetostoma

spp. have a high requirement for oxygen as well as very clean water. My personal suspicion is that a lots of deaths in rheophilic fish are directly, or indirectly, caused by sub-optimal dissolved oxygen levels. "Ordinary" fish are often un-troubled by oxygen levels that are lethal to rheophilic fish.

Have a look at <"Achieving high oxygenation": viewtopic.php?f=5&t=39885&hilit=oxygena ... net+darrel>

They are very low NO3 levels, is this a planted tank?

cheers Darrel