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My L 191(almost 20cm)died today.I noticed few days ago that its behaviour had changed.It didn`t come out at feeding times and stayed motionless in a fast current.Other fishes show no signs of any kind of trouble.They act normally.L 191 just stopped eating and it breathing was fast.From the outside i could`t tell what was wrong.Three little L 191 were the only newcomers in tank in a two years.Maybe they carried some parasite??They are in perfect condition.Today the big L 191 was very stiff when it tried to move.Aquarium is 720 l and i change 50%/week of water.Water is pumped through filters 6500l/h.Oxygen saturation is high.Warmth around 25-26.The fish was about 4 years old so it didn`t die `cause of age.Don`t know what happened has somebody else faced mysterious deaths of loricariidae.What happened to my pet?

Hi!

I had some friends down in France, who had to face with such problem with different Loricariidae. The strange thing is that it affect only a fish or so and the other are doing pretty good.
I also face that several years ago with a full grown female Hypancistrus zebra but have never experience that since ( 4 years ago!)

THe starnge fact is there is no sign of disease or other probelm, the fish is eating well, moving correctly, the tank mates do not stress it, the water parameters are good, nothing go wrong...

Cheers
Yann

I had almost the exact same thing happen with my small spot gold nugget.The only outward signs were loss of appitite/sluggishness and darkened eyes.

Maybe this is reason that leds to the myth about spelling them in full!

Could it be that some of the mystery deaths are cause by an "invisible" diseseas, such as cancer? I am sure it is possible for fish to get lots of different diseases that you won't be able to notice...

Hi!

Sure it could be a reason, the problem would be to find a veterinarian or pathologist specialise in fish disease, you would have to find your fish just after he passed away and having him either freeze or preserve like Ichthyologists do.
And having that person make a autopsy to check the possible cause of the death, the thing to know would be, is it worth to pay several hundreds $ to having someone telling you,he has either not found the cause or that like König said, it is a cancer and there is no medication for that. So you would be put exactly where you were before, only with less money ( that you could have spent on replacing the lsot fish)
I would sayit can be interesting to do so with rather expensive fish, or in case of mass death, after you have tried several thing and nothing has work to stop the causes that you thought had identified...

Cheers
Yann