My Pleco looks like it's starving to death. Please help!

[bluegirl]

Hi I'm new here and desperate to find out how to save my big buddy. I've had him for about 6 years now and he's about 13 inches. I believe he is a common pleco but as there are so many kinds I can not be sure. He grew up in a 35 gallon tank and seemed very healthy but was getting too big, knocking everything in the tank over so in July I bought a nice 55gallon tank for him.

While initially setting up the tank I had some problems which in all my years of having fish I'd never experienced and I unfortunatly lost several fish. ( it flip flopped between green and milky water for months ). The water is now cristal clear and had tested normal in all paramiters when I took it for testing.

The tank has 2 whisper 10-30i filters, a heater that keeps the tank at 76, a bubbler all the decorations from the previous tank except the live plants which didn't survive the initial poor water conditions. And this new tank has different lighting. (This one came with LED lights but I used to use a full spectrum tube light). I'm feeding him the same food he always loved ( sinking wafers mostly) and his surviving tank mates include one bala shark about 5 inches, a small red barb & 2large angels. They get along well. Nothing has changed in his routine but he just won't eat. I used to b able to hand feed him n now he's like a floating skeleton he's all sunk in everywhere! I don't want to loose him. If anyone can please help me I'd appreciate it.

 

[Canary bird]

Aww I hope he's ok ? Try feeding him some veggies, he might just be sulking .. I go through this every week with water changes, my mick sulks and won't come out unless I drop him some cucumber or cooked broccoli stem , then he's ok, just try some different foods ... Hope he starts to eat soon x

 

[bluegirl]

Thank you for your reply. I will keep trying different veggies. I've already tried zucchini, broccoli, peas, and I herd garlic makes them want to eat so I rubbed garlic cloves on some of his pellets. No luck with any of them yet. Do u know of any other veggies that might work?

 

[Brookster123]

Try some shrimp or krill pellets, mine go nuts for frozen brine shrimp, do you have drift wood in there for him?

 

[bluegirl]

I have some wood in there but he ignores it. Oddly enough he always has. I'll try the shrimp n krill. Hopefully I can get down into the city today-country living does have that one downfall lol. Thanks for the help.

 

[Canary bird]

I have some wood in there but he ignores it. Oddly enough he always has. I'll try the shrimp n krill. Hopefully I can get down into the city today-country living does have that one downfall lol. Thanks for the help.

Try shrimp wafers .. Mine loves them

 

[Canary bird]

How's he doing ?

 

[bluegirl]

Still no change. He glides from wall to decoration sucking on things that don't appear to have anything on them and ignores all the goodies I put in the tank. I've even tried sticking the wafers onto the glass but he just goes to a different wall. He's so skinny I don't know what to do.

 

[Canary bird]

Aww ... Poor fella.. I got some plec pellets for mine from pets at home ... They stink but he loves them ( he only gets one of these a week as he has loads of different foods)
I think sometimes they really do like different food choices.. I've just ordered 5 different foods just for him today

 

[bluegirl]

Thank you. I will look for them too. I think it's my fault he's doing so poorly. I hadn't realized just how much he must have been eating algae off the tank. Going from a full spectrum light for growing plants to this led setup for the new tank doesn't promote enough algae growth. I'm starting to wonder if it hasn't been his tank mates eating his treats all these years. I just need to keep trying until I find something he loves nibbling on more than that glass!

 

[Hobgob]

I would advise reading the sticky on cycling. This will happen again if your replace a your filter media or rinse it under the tap. Take our advice. Please for your fish, you, and your wallet.

 

[Hobgob]

You have two threads for this.

Well I appreciate the advice but he doesn't seem to have a hard time swimming around. And I'm pretty sure a 50% water change would do more harm than good as it would destroy the ballance of bacteria in my tank n stress out my fish. I honestly think it was the stress of changing his tank n doing all the water changes due to the cycling failure I had when I got him this new tank that cause his eatting prob in the first place. He was fat n active in his small tank. Hardly swimming in filth. I've been back to his old cleaning schedule of 15%-25% water change through substraight vacuuming once a week now for a month or two n last night I saw my buddy finally nibbling on some zucchini n he's been very active the last few days. I'm so excited to see him on the mend!

Take advice!

 

[Hobgob]

I'm sorry but your fish is stunted. You need a way bigger tank for a common pleco. Also what are you water parameters at? Liquid or strips? How long has this tank itself been set up for and how did you put it through the nitrogen cycle? Have you recently rinsed your media in tap water or replaced it all?

You seem to be greatly misinformed about fish. If your at a pet store and the worker says you can set the tank up for 24 hours and then go by fish do you keep taking advice from him? Pet stores only want to make a sale. For instance, you Bala is going to get stunted die and not live nearly as long as it should and you most likely had it in the previous tank to which would just make the case worse for him. From this he will die early causing you to return to the store and buy another. The average lifespan is 4-5 years I believe, obviously it depends on each fish. If your pets tore sold you a fish that was for your tank and you took care of it properly they wouldn't have much business. This is how they look at it.

Now do a 50% waterchange and amazing gravel vac. That pleco alone produce a huge amount of waste your subtrate could be a huge mess causing your nitrates to raise like crazy stressing him out and poisoning all the fish. Match your water temp And declorinate your water. Do some research and find out if your fish can handle salt and maybe put some in at 1tblspn per 10g.

 

[Hobgob]

I honestly think it was the stress of changing his tank n doing all the water changes due to the cycling failure I had when I got him this new tank that cause his eatting prob in the first place.mend!

Why did it cycle? You already had all your bb to sustain the fish in your old tank. Something was done wrong to cause the cycle again.

 

[Hobgob]

Hi I'm new here and desperate to find out how

While initially setting up the tank I had some problems which in all my years of having fish I'd never experienced and I unfortunatly lost several fish. ( it flip flopped between green and milky white)

The tank has 2 whisper 10-30i filters, it.

If you really wanna know what happend you need to read the sticky about cycling a tank nitrogen cycle! This could easily been avoided. Kinda obvious now that I see this little part and read your profile. Both filters came in a lot with the tank. Did you move any media over. You had a bacteria bloom and lost a bunch of fish which leads me to think you didn't causing it to cycle. Having ammonia and nitrites present and poising all your fish.

 

[bluegirl]

I know something happened during cycling. Just not sure why. I kept all the same decor most of the old substrate n I placed the old filter sponge in with the new media on the one side because everything I read on cycling suggested that would help. I never ran anything under tap water. Still happened. Not to sound mean but people seem to assume that I did not do research prior to my having fish but I've had well kept tanks all my life ( a home doesn't seem complete without one) and when I moved out I did research more on ways to cycle but this still happened. Honestly I could research these things 10 times and get 10 different results. You should see some of the crazy things that pop up in other forums or advice columns! Yikes! Even books aren't all on the same page.

 

[Hobgob]

Most of my books mention the nitrogen cycle and explain it enough to do a well fish in cycle. What are you water parameters at now? Also did you keep all of your filter media when you swapped it over? Did it by anychance dry out?