Pleco with ammonia poisoning

[lucia64]

I have a regular spotted pleco, who recently began exhibiting signs of ammonia poisoning. He is about 6 years old and 8 inches long, and it the only fish in a 29 gallon tank. He has never been sick before, nor have the ammonia levels in the tank been spiking the way they are now. I am fairly diligent about doing regular water changes and making sure the filter system is clean and functioning properly. I was away from home for about 5 months, during which my parents did not clean the tank. Strangely enough, he was completely fine during my absence and didn't exhibit any sign that the ammonia level was too high. When I got home in August, I immediately did a water change and cleaned the tank. And I have been doing water changes since then. My last regular water change was about two weeks ago. Then, about 4 days ago, I found my pleco on his side on the bottom of the tank, breathing heavily. I immediately tested for ammonia, found it to be a little less than .25, and did a 50 percent water change. Then, I went to the store and bought API no-ammo and put the appropriate amount in his tank. I did another 50% water change on the 24th, and yesterday (the 25th) I put more no ammo in. I havent seen any change in the ammonia levels, and in fact, they seem to have risen a little bit. There are a lot of algae blooms in the tank due to the ammonia and to the fact that he isn't eating any of it like he normally is.
My fish is doing better though and is no longer breathing on his side. But he isn't moving around a lot. I don't know what else to do! Other than continuing 50 percent water changes, what else can I do?

 

[Autumnsky]

So sorry to hear that the Pleco isn't doing very well. As those guys get bigger they need a larger tank and put off more waste. Maybe that is what was going on. Perhaps consider rehoming him, or getting a 40G breeder (used or at a $1. a gallon sale).

.25 ammonia shouldn't be enough to harm him. What about nitrite and nitrate?

Have you replaced your filter pads before you found him like this?

What have you been using for a dechlorinator?

Does he have real driftwood in his tank?

What brand and kind of food are you feeding him?

 

[lucia64]

Im pretty good about regularly replacing the filter pads, but maybe i accidentally skipped a change?

The nitrate level is somewhere in between 10 and 20 on the API test kit chart. Is this too high? How can I go about fixing this?

I tested for nitrites too, though only with a strip (the pet store was out of the test tube kits) and it read as 0.

I don't use a dechlorinator since I have private well water that isn't treated with anything.
I added some API stress coat to the tank today though to see if that would help. My tap water is pretty hard, though he's never been sensitive to it in the past. Im hoping the API stress coat reduces the hardness.

He has real driftwood, and I'm feeding him API bottom feeder. I don't overfeed him though (probably only 2 times a week since he does eat a lot of algae in the tank).

I agree, I think I need to rehome him since he's getting too big for his tank. I was hoping I could rehome him when I went away to grad school but looks like it will be sooner then that

 

[Autumnsky]

A couple things.

The well water, perhaps you have had a reason to get it analyzed, but I would imagine probably not necessary, if you haven't noticed any issue to need to do it. There are sometimes heavy metals in well water. So if you ever want to conider using water conditioner, make sure to get one that neutralizes heavy metals.

As for the filter pads. I found out that changing the filter pads removed the largest amount of BB/beneficial bacteria you have growing in your tank.

In nitrification, the "cycle" happens due to the BB processing the ammonia, then nitrites and finally nitrates to good water, and depend on those bacteria the BB in the filter pad for the actual nitrificaton cycle!!!

So we say, do NOT change your filter pad until the fibers fall apart, usually over one year or more!! You can save so much money that way .

You should gently to moderately swish the filter pad in the pwc water in a bucket before dumping it out. Depending upon the size of your hang on the back /aka HOB filter, may have enough room to add a 2nd filter pad.

This helps provide the largest amount of useful space for BB to grow on and then in turn provides the maximum protection from spikes of the bad stuff which can harm your fish.

You may be able to get a nice smaller variety of Pleco when you decide to rehome him.

The nitrates are okay.

You may like to see if your well water has any Nitrates in it out of the tap (it is comforting to know, same with Ammonia). If so, you can more easily understand why the tank has X many or too many or either.

Also as for the test strip, I know that the test strips are sometimes wrong. Personal experience with dead fish because of bad Nitrite part of test strip, even after originally testing each and matching the results with the liquid test kit. :'(

Hoping that helps. There are lots of things to know!!!

If you can possibly take the time, read the AA article about getting started with fish and tanks link in my signature. Full of good info and links to the other related topics.

 

[Delapool]

Good points above.

An extra thought is I would do weekly water changes and drop it down to say 30 or 40%. I have found some fish don't like large water changes. Conversely the betta tank gets 99% water change each week but is acclimatised back.

Is there a lot of substrate gunk being stirred up? If the substrate bottom is dirty or stirred up and he's resting in it this may not help (resting in organic matter which can lead to bacterial infections).

Testing well water for everything makes a lot of sense. Our well water changed with the seasons. So if your well water is quite high in ph and the algal blooms are reducing your ph, then the large water changes may be changing the tank water chemistry more than he likes. Something like that but something along those lines to check.

Also is tank water movement sufficient? The algal blooms may be lowering O2. A uv unit or lowering light period.

And just congrats on trying to get your tank back right. It sounds like old tank syndrome and I'm sure it will come good for you. If you could coax your parents into even scooping out a jug a week, treating new water and adding back this may help when away (I know tough when everyone busy).