Could my clown pleco be sick?

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fordprefect

Aquarium Advice Newbie
Joined
Sep 6, 2015
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So I have a new clown pleco. Been in my 29 gal about a month with some danios. It is my first tank. Temp 78F and my heater is not adjustable. Tank is cycled and my nitrates are low. They rise very slowly in my tank even after adding the pleco who obviously produces alot of waste. My levels have never gone above 5.0 ppm according to api test kit. My ph is about 7.8. our tap water was 7.8 when i set up tank and has since risen to 8.2. i have done a couple pwc since this rise but so far the water inside the tank still tests 7.8.

She (I believe its a female) chews on a piece of Mopani wood all day. She also gets tetra veggie algae wafers about 5 days a week and gets zucchini about once per week. I break her off about a quarter sized piece of the wafers and stick it in her little spot were she can eat it mostly un bothered by the danios. They stole it from her the first night. She also scavenges around for tank algae and tetramin tropical flakes. I dont know what she does after lights out but is normally pretty active during light hours. So I woke up yesterday to something unusual. There was a super long poop floating around the tank it looked like a bunch of her normal poops connected together by a thin hair like string. I read about parasites and white poop. I would describe this as transparent. But its very thin and hard to tell. The normal thick sections were the usual colors i’m used to seeing, shades of brown and green. She acted fine the rest of the day. Today i wake up and she hasn't moved, shes sitting in the same spot under her wood. She moved briefly when i fed the danios and a whole pile of poop came floating out form under her. This all looked normal but indicated she hasn’t moved in a while. She shortly returned to that spot and hasn’t moved since & she has a piece of that thin stringy poop hanging out of her. I havent seen her sit in one place like this unless shes sucking on the wood. I can see her mouth moving like shes breathing at least. I’m starting to worry. So my question is could she be sick? Could I be feeding her wrong? Over or under feeding? And if its possible shes sick what symptoms should I be looking for beyond what I have already observed so i can figure out how to treat her? She looks physically healthy to me other wise.

Sorry for the long read but wanted as much info as possible, i appreciate anyones help.
 
Hi, how is the tank going? Any improvement in the fish? Like us, it could range from "upset tummy" to bacterial infection to parasites. Had anything changed in the tank or in feed?
 
hi, yea i switched her to the api wafers and she seems to be doing ok with those as far as i can tell. she still looks healthy. not skinny, eyes and fins look good color looks good, poop looks better. she hasn't been grazing on her wood as much but i think that might be because i increased feeding to every night. I give her a 8th of the api wafer now cuz she will eat an 8th in a night if i give her a quarter she will eat about half and return to finish the rest later in the day. I may see how she does on a every other day wafer with some fresh veggies a couple times a week. the information i'm getting about feeding these things is all over the place so i'm just trying to use my best judgment.
 
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