I know.. I know... I'm annoying... but...

[bunebop]

Ok, so last Sunday my bushy-nosed pleco somehow managed to jump out of my 10 gal. I do not know how long he was out, but it was between 45 min-4 hours. When I found him I was convinced he was dead. I set him on a plastic bag on top of the 50 gal since he was not moving. I then went to take a shower and apparently my brother saw him moving on top of the tank so threw him in! Well, he looked ok that day... since then he's been slowly rotting alive inside the tank. Well, yesterday I noticed the water was very yellow. The pleco was still alive, but rotting. I did prolly about a 40% water change and then tested the stats. To my surprise, the nitrite was up quite a but, which was rather surprising since it is an established tank. I had already done a huge water change, so did not want to do another last night. This morning the partly rotted pleco was dead unfortunatly. I took him out of the tank and he looked in pretty bad shape. My main question is, could my rotting pleco be the reason for the yellow water as well as the nitrite spike and is there anything I can do to clear it up? Thanks very much.

[TankGirl]

Sorry about the pleco, I lost a rubberlip that had jumped out of the tank but I did not know it.

The pleco almost definitely caused the spike, so water changes and daily monitoring will be important. I would shoot for about a 30% initial change if you have discolored water, then 10% daily after that if there is still a problem. Also if you can take a decoration or filter media or gravel or something from your 12gal it will help the 10gal get back under control.

[bunebop]

ok, thanks a lot! I'll do that right now

[youronlysin]

Sorry about the Pleco loss.

My Pleco, on occasion, will swim from the bottom of tank to the top and back to the bottom in a split second. I swear, if the hood were off, he'd fly three feet into the air. I dont know why he does it, he just seems to get a bit feisty once in a while. I would also have to agree that the Pleco was the cause for the abnormal spike. I've seen similar spikes in my smaller tank when my Ghost shrimp died. I had four and, my luck, every one of them laid eggs all over the place (females ) <-- waiting for a nasty response on that Anyway, after they laid eggs they eventually died, but every time, the tank would spike rapidly even after less than 12 hours in the tank after death. ( Didnt notice til I got home from work). Hope you get your params down soon and you have better luck with the next one! Get a top on that thing! Even if its just a glass lid.

[youronlysin]

P.S.

Dont worry about being annoying. If anything, you'll get an answer to a question that someone else wanted to ask but was afraid to. (Like me!)

[hisc1ay]

That sucks a lot. Was he really rotting or was it a stress-induced fungus? I remember when my Betta took a dive, he was out for a while. Then he developed this nice hump on his back, although he didn't die for quite some time. Months even.

-j

[bunebop]

lol I do have a top on the tank!! It has a top and he had to have sqeezed out in the inch or so between the filter and the top!! I have no idea how the heck he did it!! I didn't think he could fit threw there. I honestly have no idea how that happened.

It may have been stress-induced fungus. I don't know the difference really... I do know that his fins were disappearing... and he was looking really bad....