Eyes bigger than stomach

[Creamhorses]

Yesterday I fetched a young zucchini from the garden for my plecos and others. I zapped a slice for a minute so it would sink, like I usually do.

Pleco sniffed it out as well as others; including my false algae eater. Just found him dead.:^( and thinking that maybe he ate too much veggie. His belly was quite full last night.

My second thought is that maybe I shouldn't cook it, or use more mature zukes that are higher in fiber.

Comments?

CH

 

[coldmachineUK]

Hmm...I'm no expert on fish nutrition but I've not heard of a fish dying that soon after eating too much. Overfeeding (or too-greedy-for-their-own-good) fish tend to develop bloat and a distended abdomen before eventually giving up the ghost. I wouldn't have thought your fish would have died so quickly if that was the problem but I could be wrong.

Had he been showing any signs of being unwell before? Usually with plecs the sign of a bad diet is actually a sunken belly rather than a beer belly (lol) but like I said I'm not an expert.

I know you will have already checked water params too. It might just be one of those very unfortunate 'mystery' deaths

Sorry to hear about the loss though.

 

[hc8719]

i also feed my fish cucumbers and zucchini (however you spell it). but i feed it to them raw, boiling takes out the nutriets, thats why they say par-boil cooking alot for food you feed fish/tadpoles. if you dont like how the food floats, i bought a clip from petsmart, it has a suction cup, works nice.

however about you algae eater, i dont think he was overfed, its actually alot harder than what most people think. actually alot of deaths is due to the problems living in a bowl, or improper care. i cant really explain his death, sorry about your loss

 

[Cafe Jeff]

Doesn't sound like over feeding to me.
Once my 5 year old absolutely demanded I take home an awful aquarium ornament of a shark with his mouth open.
Turned out to be a great place to wedge zucchini. My 5 year old takes particular interest in how the colour of the pleco-poo changes with choice of zuke. Yello spaghetti puts him into fits! Jeff

 

[Creamhorses]

Guyz

The nitrate/nitrite is good. I don't think water quality is the problem. Nor did this AE show any signs of being 'off'.
I have another AE in our 55, going through the same 'bloat' look, only he seems to be doing fine this morning....eating away @ algae on one of the anubias leaves. This is ~48 hours after eating a slice from the same zuke.

We've got 5 of these false algae eaters in our various tanks. They come from the lfs slim, rather light in color and very active. Normally what happens is that in a few days to weeks, they darken considerably, showing less of a stripe along their sides, and more small squares of like patchwork. They remain almost constantly active, doing their thing on glass and plants. But they also love the sinking algae wafers, and go bullsh** for Zukes.

Is it possible that it could be a spawning thing, with egg production causing the distended gut?

Gonna get a pic of the chubby guy/gal I last mentioned.


CH

 

[lovemybarbs]

How do you fertilize the garden? Do you use pesticide?? I would rule this out.

I nuke my veggies for a second to get them soft, but I don't boil them.

I nuke my frozen peas just to get them so I can peel them.

 

[hc8719]

is nuke the new word for "microwave"?

 

[lovemybarbs]

yeah. Sorry.

 

[Creamhorses]

God, no herbicides!!! Our garden is as organic as possible.....we use mulch for weed control; we have boucoup manure from horses, and stock night crawlers and worms too large for fish food.

Yes 'nuke' is used as slang for microwave cooking.