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Common Bristlenose keep dying in my tank but albino doesn't


maxximuscool

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Hello Guys and Gals,

I'm having this problem with Bristlenose pleco. I bought 1 bristlenose from the petstore and he lasted in my tank for 5 months then he died out may be from starvation.

I tried to feed him cucumber and chickpeas but he didn't care, he was sucking the driftwood dried. But one day he just dropped dead.

I had 8 common bristlenose in my tank in total. But one by one seems to drop dead in a week or two. The only thing that make me scratching my head is my Albino Bristlenose are happily swimming in the tank and eating the cucumber I feed them. Not just that, they even clean up the left over flake at the bottom of the tank too.

They're looking really healthy and fat. But the black common bristlenose looking skinny then one by one dying on me.

I test the water and everything seemed to be in the acceptable range.

PH: 6.4-6.8 (Driftwood inside and constant water changed)

N: 0

Amonia: 0-0.3 (before water change and now it is 0 and constantly at 0)

plants: Java ferns

Oxygen: Air pumping all night/day

Temperature: 24C

My siamese fighters, one female guppy, 2 Golden Albino Bristlenoses and a sword tail female are doing great in the tank.

I am lost for words for the cause of BNs death.

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possible causes: ammonia too high (should never reach 0.5ppm)

N stands for.... if nitrite then good, if nitrate the sounds to me like you have no filtration atm.

other possibilities include bullying, wrong type of wood, worm infection etc... but start with the basics.

what size tank and what filter are you using?

pH. 6.3 - 7.0 is that the fluctuations??? then im surprised its only your BN's dying

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Do you have a gravel substrate?

Since you don't have any rooted plants you might have lots of waste amongst the gravel causing the pH to drop all the time. Your pH shouldn't vary from 6.3 to 7 with daily water changes; it should be close to the same as the tap water. I would think driftwood takes a long time to change pH if it's been in the tank for a long time. And that might also cause the elevated ammonia you're seeing.

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Nitrite : 0

Amonia is not high at all. I always changed water everyday and when it raise to 0.5, I do a water change right after. So Pretty much stabalised.

No substrate, just bare base tank with plants on the driftwood and in a takeaway container with gravel.

I use the Malaysian driftwood. And the PH is in the range of 6.5-7 (rough estimate).

So somewhere about 6.5 because this is based on the colour I can see last time I did a PH test. It sit in the middle. But PH shouldn't kill my fish. All of the fish are happily in the tank exept the black bristlenoses. Yellow one are doing fine.

I have heaps of plants by the way. Java ferns, java sword, java moss, java fern narrow leaves, anubia, indian fern and two other long grow plants (similar to oxygen weed but fine leaves and big leaves floaty one).

I have full filter system: external filter and internal filter. Tank size is 50L BluePlanet and a Glass 50L tank. All have plants in it.

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The yellow bristlenose are not hardier than the brown. It is simply a colour variation, like you would expect to see in guppies.

As for why your brown bristlenose are dying, are you feeding them a pleco tablet or just fresh food?

I feed them cucumber and driftwood.

Just checked my PH, Amonia and Nitrite last night.

PH: 6.4 (albino bristle tank) and 6.8 (the one with chinese algae eater)

Amonia = Neutral

Nitrite = Neutral

Nitrade = Ran out of test liquid

Added some tonic salt last night to help kill bacteria grow in the tank.

My black Bristlenose always dropped dead but my golden one are thriving and growing :)

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I had 8 common bristlenose in my tank in total. But one by one seems to drop dead in a week or two.

a bit overstocked in a 50L tank.

what are your stocking levels??

are there any other fish in the tanks?

how big are the BN's?

male to female ratio??

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a bit overstocked in a 50L tank.

what are your stocking levels??

are there any other fish in the tanks?

how big are the BN's?

male to female ratio??

I have two 50L tanks.

I got Siamese fighters in both of them.

They were about 5cm-7cm but I split them up. I had total of 8.

But I get them 3 to 4 at a time to replace the dead bristlenoses.

Technically I have 1 on one tank and 2 on the other and they all died out. So I got the Albino one and they are lively and loved my tank. Even the Siamese are scared of them :D

I have terrible luck with the Black one somehow.

@caryl,

No, sorry for not saying it correctly.

I had a total of 8 black bristlenose (deceased) + 2 golden albino (living).

8 of the deceased Bristles are bought at different time.

First I start with 1 of them. Then I got another 3. Total of 4.

I put 2 in one tank "A" and 2 in another "B". The two from "A" died after 1 week, 1 of 2 in tank "B" died after 2 weeks.

5 months later only 1 survivor from tank "B" and it is a female, I got another 2 Golden Albinos (one male and one female) and put him into the same tank "B" as the survivor bristlenose.

2 weeks later the last black (7cm) bristle in tank "B" died (cause of death could be starvation). I got another 4 black spotty bristles and put them in the same tank "A" (not the one with golden albino inside). 2 weeks later the 8cm black one died, followed by another one 2 days later. One of the bristlenose gone missing in the tank, couldn't find him and one came outside and sucking the glass. I moved it to my golden tank "B" to prevent more death. But 1 day later that one also died :(

So all I have left now are the Golden Albino bristlenoses. They loved their cucumber and very active.

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umm even 2 BN's in a 50L is pushing it.

must say though that you seem to be blaming the colour when in fact the Browns should technically be hardier fish (opening can of worms here) it is far more likely that the browns have suffered poor handling somewhere along the supply chain and have had a weaker immune system (browns normally get mistreated a lot more due to their ease of breeding/lower price) which has been compromised when added to a tank with a immature system (a lethal ammonia spike can last just a few min's in some cases and will not be detected, 0.5ppm imo is normally the remnants of a much larger spike)

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I don't think you have a functioning bacterial filter with 0.5ppm ammonia and daily water changes.

I have a functional bacterial filter. But my problem was I have too many Siamese fighters before, they are pooping none stop. Now that I got rid most of them, they are much less problematic to other fish.

Hints: I have 350+ Siamese fighter in a single breed lol. But my Siamese fighters can survive the most atrocious water conditions (Super hardy fish) than the one you see in the Pet Store that was breed by normal breeder. I used to raise Siamese fighters and breeding it when I was 10 to 14years old. And 13 years after I am back to breeding them again :)

My Siamese can happy live in tap water :) beat that!

But yes the Ammonia spike has now stopped. But now I have bacteria blooming after putting cucumber/courget into my tank. But everything else are sweet.

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I feed them cucumber and driftwood.

Try feeding them some novo plec tabs as it doesn't sound like they are getting enough food to me. My plecos love these and I supplement them with other bottom feeding tabs and sometimes some veges.

Just checked my PH, Amonia and Nitrite last night.

PH: 6.4 (albino bristle tank) and 6.8 (the one with chinese algae eater)

Amonia = Neutral

Nitrite = Neutral

Nitrade = Ran out of test liquid

Added some tonic salt last night to help kill bacteria grow in the tank.

My black Bristlenose always dropped dead but my golden one are thriving and growing :)

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We breed a mixture of different types of bristlenoses and commons are usually hardier than albino. Bristlenoses usually don't mind a low ph with some even thriving better around the 5.5.

Are there any other symptoms other than losing condition. We feed ours on pleco tabs and also add some cucumber and cooked shelled peas and always have wood in each of the tanks.

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when you say (in your post on wednesday at 2.12pm) that one bristlenose came outside and was sucking on the glass - do you mean his head was up out of the tank.

My common brown bristlenose which I could not keep alive, did that in my big tank which was getting too hot for them and there was not enough oxygen in the water. They kept coming up and putting their heads out. Then they died. They also tended to come up when ammonia was present but the heat and lack of oxygen was the main reason for it.

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original post states 24 degrees C as temp, almost perfect for bristles

Yes I read that. What is the temperature gauged on - the heater, the strip that sticks on the outside of the aquarium or a proper thermometer. We all know the strips fail after a while and that some heaters dont run at the temperatures they are set at. Its just a suggestion from a proven fact.

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when you say (in your post on wednesday at 2.12pm) that one bristlenose came outside and was sucking on the glass - do you mean his head was up out of the tank.

My common brown bristlenose which I could not keep alive, did that in my big tank which was getting too hot for them and there was not enough oxygen in the water. They kept coming up and putting their heads out. Then they died. They also tended to come up when ammonia was present but the heat and lack of oxygen was the main reason for it.

Yes before he/she died, the bristlenose sucking up near the water surface and quickly breathe air and back to the same place again. But got a new bristlenose in the other tank with 2 chinese algae eaters :)

They are so far so good. :) Those suckers are really working hard, they cleaned all my algae problems on my java ferns.

I have both thermometers one on the outside and the one in the inside of the tank. Both reading 24c almost constantly (except on a really cold night).

Heater is Aqua One 100W and one is turned to 24C (produce 24c) and one is turned to 26C (produce 24C).

Just did a clean up last night, took the filter sponges out of the internal filters and the Mechanical/Biological filter cleaned it by squeezed it out in the syphoned water out from the fish tanks before put it back into the filters. Right now all my Bristles are at the bottom of my tank and hardly be seen sucking on to the side of the tank. The male Albino loves his driftwood cave and the female loves her air bubble corner lol. She loves sucking to the takeaway container with gravel inside.

So far so good, no casualties and happy Bristlenoses :)

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I breed these and have hundreds at any given time. They don't mind large temperature variations and they don't mind a range of pH levels (as long as it doesn't fluctuate too quickly). They also can tolerate a range of water quality conditions, and very large water changes, including low oxygen conditions as they can breathe some air from the surface. The one thing they can't tolerate is starvation and they can lose condition fairly quickly (the exception of this is males who will not eat for weeks when they are guarding a cave of fry). They eat much more than you would think and I find that if I over feed cucumber or courgette I have increased deaths. A good quality algae tab (not a tab that is exclusively Spirulina though) will do well and if they aren't getting any protein leftovers from other fish, feed some higher protein foods once a week or so. Feed as much as they can consume in 18 hours or so and always keep wood available.

Just my 2c.

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