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Hello! It seems Lloyd is not eating...

I got him on Friday. They said he was a 'leopard striped peckolita' but I could not find anything with that name. I searched the pics and threads on here and he looks like a L387. Same tan color, small dark spots on head to bigger spots/stripes on the body. He's about 4". I haven't seen him eat since I got him. He seems active, I find him all over the tank and he doesn't hide in my pirate ship, though he did for a few hours on the first day. I sometimes see that his mouth is not actually sucking anything, not right on the glass or ground like I've seen others do. His tummy looks concave, and from what I've read on here he must be hungry.

There is a bit of algae for him to eat, but I dropped a wafer close to him so he could eat that, but nope. He ignored it. At the lfs it was just his kind and common plecos in the tank. No rocks, gravel, or wood. He was sucking then and moving around. Tomorrow I am going out and getting some bloodworm/zucchini to see if that gets him going, but I am worried. What if he doesn't like that either? Maybe he needs wood, though there was none in his tank at the lfs?

I'm sorry for the long post but wanted to give you guys all the info to help me. Side note, is there a trick to taking blurry free pics? i tried different lighting, etc and they came out bad.

29g, 6 neons, 10 or so ghost shrimp, 1 lloyd
amm 0, no2 0, no3 0.10, temp 76
undergravel filter, biowheel/mech, gravel, fake plants, pirate ship, bubble wand

fake plants, pirate ship

Some wood certainly wouldn't hurt. And a bit of patience. It can take some time for the fish to start eating...

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Mats

fake plants, pirate ship

Hey, I love my ship! This is my first tank, so I didn't want try and grow plants too... and I read some plecs rip up the plants anyways.

Some wood certainly wouldn't hurt. And a bit of patience. It can take some time for the fish to start eating...

Perhaps I am being too impatient, but I don't want Lloyd to starve himself. I guess I should have checked his belly before I bought him. Even if I do get wood today, I would need to let it soak for awhile right? To get the tannins out?

I would just soak the wood overnight - tannins are not bad for the fish - in fact, most fish LIKE tannin, and as long as you don't mind the water turning a bit brown, it's not a problem.

But wood is not for Peckoltia feeding, it is more for the fish to hide under/behind.

Plants vary in difficulty - just like some fish are much easier to keep than others, plants range from "add water, and they will grow" to "needs constant care and attention, or they will die immediately".

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Mats

Haha my first tank had flourescent pink gravel in it! Ugh... I soon outgrew that sort of thing. Easiest plants I found are java fern.... if I couln't kill it anyone should be able to grow it.
I would give him some time, but if you use a turky baster you can squirt bloodworms right down to him. I would turn the lights out first though, use a small flashlight to see if he/she is eating.

Sadly, I found Lloyd dead when I got home. The last two nights I have been trying tubifex worms, carnivore granules, and carnivore wafers in addition to the algae wafers to try and get him to eat. Last night he came down to the bottom of the tank near the wafer, so I thought it was working... but this morning he wasn't moving much. I don't know what else I could have done, besides not buying a pleco with a sunken tummy. Yay for learning it the hard way. :/

Going back to the LFS tonite for the 5 day refund, and hopefully they will have fat tummy plecos. They had these guys in with the common plecos, maybe they were just feeding them algae only?

Sorry to hear, and good luck with getting something else that is in better condition. 5 day "live fish" guarantee is very good...

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Mats

Sorry to hear about your fish. Hope this doesn't sound like criticism, just advice to maybe help you next time:

The last two nights I have been trying tubifex worms, carnivore granules, and carnivore wafers in addition to the algae wafers to try and get him to eat.

Pumping loads of extra food into a tank with undergravel filter could have been a problem. The food will remain uneaten, break up and get sucked down into the gravel, causing water quality problems.

Regarding the tank design, I would say it is not really suitable for wild caught fish. They need a really secure environment, and a relatively open tank with a single hiding place, a few plastic plants and blue gravel doesn't seem enough to me. I'm not even sure if the tank has a backing - these are essential.

Also I would suggest the water was too cold. Aim for about 28C when introducing new "fancy" plecos. A stressed, uncomfortable fish will never feed.

Next time, if you want to keep wild fancy plecos, ditch the blue gravel and undergravel filter, get some sand, put a backing on the tank, and make a big tangle of wood and rocks with several entrances. Also raise the temp up to 28C and be careful what you feed, always monitoring ammonia and nitrite with a test kit.

try cucumber
I cant imagine a pleco resisting that

tho on the who eats what it says that peckoltia are omni-carnivores.


so maybe some meatier food try cutting up an earth worm I give it to my plecos as a treat but the blood/worm juice really sets my fish off.

at first it will be sickening but just run the worm under hot water till it stops moving then cut it up with a knife

good luck