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I've had this Ancistrus sp. for about a week, and I don't think he has eaten one thing in that time. Looking at photos taken on the day of purchase, he looked the same so he probably wasn't eating in the LFS, either.

Here is the best photo I could get showing the problem. i don't want to prompt anyone, but does he look like he's starving to you? To me his eyes look very sunken.


In contrast, if you look at him hanging on the glass, his ventral area looks full.
He's about 8 cm long, and looks like sp. "Lower Rio Negro."

Is there anything I can do to prompt him to eat? I've tried a couple of different wafers made for "plecos," zucchini slices (courgette) and now romaine lettuce in a clip, which I'll leave overnight.
How long can he go on like this?

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20 US gallons
plants
wood
Chaetostoma sp.(2)
a few small tetras
a few guppies
pH 7.2
KH 2
GH 4-5
tank has been set up 10 years.

What is the temperature of the tank?

I have never kept Chaetostoma, but I know they like to chase each other around... maybe they are out competing the ancistrus for the food or pushing it around.

If it is hanging around the filter maybe there is not enough structure for all.

It does take time for some to settle in and a week is not long.

Birger

He is a male right? I see bristles up his snout. My males never come out and eat when I can see them, only the females do. Or the young males, teenagers.

I bet he is eating when you are asleep. Keep putting in zuchinni and cucumber and sweet bell pepper strips and mushrooms , he 'll get some.

I rarely see my males either - they keep close guard of their cave.

--
Mats

Thanks for your interesting replies. My actual question - which wasn't answered - had to do with his eyes. Are they sunken or not?

But that's ok - perhaps you can't tell.

He looks a lot different now. His eyes look much better and more normal. He is eating, mostly Veggie Rounds, which is a wafer made for herbivores. He seems vigorous and lively so I think he is adapting to life in a fish tank. He got beat up in the LFS where they were keeping him in a tank with African cichlids. The whole set-up was wrong.

Birger asked some shrewd questions.
1. Temperature?
2. Chaetostoma competition?
3. Structure?

The heat was turned up as part of a treatment to combat a small case of Ich, never seen in this tank before. I'm sure the Bn started it, but he never got it himself. He has something else - a sort of nodules collection on each pec fin. Looks gross, but I'm treating with an herbal remedy by Kordon.
The Chaetostoma are territorial, but are not a problem to the Bn. They each have their own cave or den. They don't like the heat and are no longer in this tank.
There is a lot of tank structure, and plenty of caves and so forth. I believe the heat drove the Bn up to the filter box, where the strong current provided more oxygen.

He is definitely a male, andy, and my real concern was that I didn't see him eating anything, not that he was hiding or hard to see. In fact, I see him all the time, because he's picked the front of a piece of slate at the back for his "cave."
Thanks for your help. I'm going to try the bell pepper strips.

If this stuff by Kordon works, I'll post about it. It's a nice alternative to the malachite green and formalin products, which I won't use.


Deb

He got beat up in the LFS where they were keeping him in a tank with African c*****ds. The whole set-up was wrong.

That explains a lot.

I believe the heat drove the Bn up to the filter box, where the strong current provided more oxygen.

This makes sense to me as there looked to be plants and stuff in this tank.

Sounds like he is settling in much better now.

If this stuff by Kordon works, I'll post about it. It's a nice alternative to the malachite green and formalin products, which I won't use.

It would be nice to hear comments if it does not work as well...what is the name of the product?

Birger

yes, in that picture posted, I think his eyes do look a little sunken to me.

poor guy being beat up by cichlids! keep us posted on him!

The poor guy's eyes definitely look sunken to me too : (

When my BN first arrived, they weren't interested in eating for almost a week. They finally did eat some blanched sweet potato, zuccini (wasn't blanched -- just in tank soaking for about 24h). I am always surprised to see them sucking in frozen black worms when I feed them to the loaches... shrimp pellets also work sometimes.

honestly, no, IME plecos don't tend to survive very long when they reach the sunken eye stage -- just keep trying other vegetables, different pellets, etc. -- something might eventually spark his interest.

best of luck,

akb

Yes, his eyes do look sunken. Unfortunately, you cannot do much more than keep on offering food and hoping for the best. Good luck -keep us posted!

Adam

Thanks for your replies.
He is all better now and here's his pic:
This photo is also posted on his ID thread, in the ID forum.

I should have posted sooner, but we had a death in the family.

Birger wrote:

Deb wrote:If this stuff by Kordon works, I'll post about it. It's a nice alternative to the malachite green and formalin products, which I won't use.

It would be nice to hear comments if it does not work as well...what is the name of the product?

I used an herbal remedy, a 100% organic product called Ich-Attack by Kordon. After I began the treatment with Ich-Attack, the Bn started to eat. A week later he was eating regularly, and looking for food. His entire behavior changed for the better.

The bristlenose brought Ich into the tank, although he did not come down with it himself. I treated the tank with Kordon Ich-Attack for about 10 days and it worked very well. The Ich was gone completely, with only one fish lost, a weak female guppy with a whitish patchy condition.

After the treatment with Ich-Attack, I ran a course of erythromycin because the ancistrus had developed these nodule-like growths on his pecfins and his cheek area. We had no idea what it was. It's easy to say "fungal" but no one knows, really. Many of these things look alike. My friend thought it might be columnaris because there was a sort of whitish patch on the Bn's head.

After the erythromycin, I learned that it was not the right anti-biotic to use for the columnaris bacteria, so I planned to follow with a course of tetracycline to make sure all the gram -/+ bacteria were covered.

However, the Bn had started to look so good, and all the white growths were diminished so significantly that I decided he had not had columnaris after all. No lesions ever developed and the white head patch went away almost at once.

As well, he had seemed so listless when the anti-biotic was in the water, so I decided to not stress him out any further.

I skipped the tetracycline and changed half the water.
I added my homemade oak leaf extract. The Bn perked up right after the w/c and the oak leaf extract seemed to give him new life.

It took only a few days for the last of the bumpy nodules to go away. Personally, I think it was a mild case of lymphocystis.
You can see by the pic that he is clean and healthy.

He eats (and looks!) like a horse.

I worried a lot about the sunken eyes. I didn't think his prospects were good. I knew he had to eat something soon or it would be the end. I think the combo of the herbal remedy which made him feel better, and the frequent introduction of the veggie rounds was what saved him. The oak leaf extract is keeping him healthy.

I still don't know his ID, though.

Deb