Something in my water doesn't agree with rubberlip plecos...

[sudz]

Speaking of bad fish from stores... I looked at the petsmart in brampton ontario the other day, they just moved stores from one side of a palaza to another. They had their tanks for FOUR days and then fully stocked them. a staggering amount of fish died within a week, and about 50% of the fish i've seen have ich.
Just a word of caution. Apparently all the fish were held up during shipping from manitoba, they were in a bag in a styrofoam cooler for 6 days. Probably didn't help. (they sold off all their old fish when they moved stores)

*note to self* Never take fishkeeping advice from petsmart from now on */note to self*

 

[Hrafnkel]

Not sure how that was relevant... Because this petsmart has been there for a long time. And I've had good luck with basically every other fish I've gotten from them, just not rubberlips.

 

[megladonsharky]

Ahhh Petsmart here the fish are usually nice... I have noticed the rubberlips are very small thus very young... try a mom and pop shop with bigger ones..

 

[Hrafnkel]

Petsmart's the only place for 120 miles that sells any non-common plecos at all. Don't have that luxury.

 

[Lonewolfblue]

Yoyo's are cool, 3-5 of them. Or striped loaches too. They stay smaller of course, but are very active, and loves snails. My 2 striped loaches took care of the snail problem I had. And they have a lot of character.

 

[BrianNY]

Sorry I didn't look at this thread earlier. The key to me is that your plecos up and died after a water change. Plecos can be very sensitive to sudden shifts in their environment. Especially pH, so a couple of questions.

Did you or do you check tap pH vs tank? Did you do a heavy gravel vac? What is the KH of your water? I'm curious because I'm wondering if you're buffered against pH crashes.

Just so you'll know, I used to lose pleco fry after water changes. It turned out that merely buffering the water solved the problem for me..

 

[rubysoho]

good points Brian. I completely forgot about that.

 

[Hrafnkel]

Did you or do you check tap pH vs tank?

Not anymore, my pH has always been consistent between tap and tank.

Did you do a heavy gravel vac?

Nope.

What is the KH of your water?

Dunno. Pretty high.