vapo Posted June 28, 2005 Report Share Posted June 28, 2005 Please help! One of my neon tetras was acting aggressive and upon closer inspection, it had a big band of no colour up the side with a dark looking worm shape inside its belly. I quarantined the poor wee fishie yesterday, but now my two Plecos have bands of faded colour across them, behind their heads and across their backs and the neon has lost almost all it's colour in the quarantine tank. Does anyone know what could be causing this? My water parameters are almost normal, though the ammonia has risen from 0 to 0.1-0.2. Would this be enough to cause the discolouration I've observed? Cheers, Vapo. I've posted this in the diseases section as well. Thought I'd post in here too, to try and get as quick a response as possible. Thanks again. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt Posted June 28, 2005 Report Share Posted June 28, 2005 Hi Vapo, Your best bet for now would be to do a 25% water change straight away, then do another 25% change tomorrow, that should bring your ammonia level down. You didn't give much information, but it sounds as if your tank may still be cycling after reading a few of your earlier posts, so I wouldn't add any more fish until your tank settles down and don't feed them for a couple of days. What do you mean by your water parameters are almost normal? I hope this helps. Cheers, Matt Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vapo Posted June 28, 2005 Author Report Share Posted June 28, 2005 Thanks Matt. Will do that water change immediately. Yes my tank is very new, only running for 18 days. By almost normal, I mean Nitrites-0, Nitrates-0, pH-7.2, but Ammonia is 0.1-0.2 when it was 0 previously (2 days ago). I was wondering if this change in Ammonia could be the cause of my problems. I have done 3 water changes since the fish have been in there (approx 13 days) and we have 5 medium sized plants in our 285L tank. We have 9 neon tetras, two 3" Plecos, four 3 1/2" gourami, and four 3" clown loaches in there also. That's all the info I can think of. *EDIT* The filter is a 1600L/hr max, not a 1200L/hr as I stated in a previous post. Cheers, Vapo. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Faran Posted June 28, 2005 Report Share Posted June 28, 2005 Too many clown loaches, you should sell a few On a serious note, water changes fix just about anything (concering levels). You can do the 25% per day twice or 10% a day for a week. As my tank is still cycling and I haven't been bothered getting the full test kit range, I do a 10% water change bi-weekly. Pretty much guarantees safe levels. So have you been doing water changes thus far? VERY important, specially when your tank is cycling. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vapo Posted June 28, 2005 Author Report Share Posted June 28, 2005 The Lighting is from two Power-Glo Tubes and one 10,000K tube. We have the lights on for 12hrs in the following configuration: One Power-Glo on for 12hrs, the other for 5hrs, and the 10,000K for about three hours but only ever have two tubes on at any one time. Does this sound OK for the fish/plants we have, or should we change the timing? All fish are still eating normally and seem to behave naturally, except the one neon. (at least as normal as my minimal experience would suggest) Cheers, Vapo. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vapo Posted June 28, 2005 Author Report Share Posted June 28, 2005 Thanks BlueandKim. Yes, we have been doing them, but at 20% every 4 days. Will try 10% per day for the next couple of weeks. And no, we will not part with our loaches!!! :lol: Love their playful personality, though they chase everyone at feeding time! Cheers, Vapo. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caryl Posted June 28, 2005 Report Share Posted June 28, 2005 Plecs and clowns are not fish I would add to a new tank as they prefer a well matured one with plenty to graze on. Keep a close eye on the clowns as they are very prone to whitespot. If they are OK, I would suggest the neon was a one-off sickie. Plecs sometimes change colour according to mood and substrate colour. They go pale on a pale substrate and darken up on a dark one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vapo Posted June 29, 2005 Author Report Share Posted June 29, 2005 Thanks Caryl. We've been putting Pleco-chips in for the plecos every couple of days and they're eating them - along with the clowns and gouramis, but the plecos seem to push them off. We were advised that plecos were good first fish to put in the tank to help start the cycle off, was this bad advice? The substrate is brown, black, white and cream coloured gravel. They only started losing colour last night, after being in there for two weeks. They seem to be eating fine and swimming around fairly unconcerned, though they hide a lot during the day. Oh, yeah our temp is approx 27.5C, is that OK? Thought we should keep it there for the clown loaches, but is it too high for the plecs? Cheers, Vapo. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caryl Posted June 29, 2005 Report Share Posted June 29, 2005 Nothing wrong with your temp as those fish will tolerate anything between 25 - 28C. Most people have their tanks at 25 - 26C but mine sit at 22 -24C and I mind my fishes quite happy. Are your 'plecs' actually plecostomus (Hypostomus plecostomus), or the red sailfin plec (Petrygoplichthys gibbiceps) or actually bristlenoses (Ancistrus)? There is a big difference in adult sizing in those species. Bristlenoses only grow to about 8 - 10cm, the red sailfin to around 30 - 40cm and the common plec will grow over 60cm. Plecs continually graze off algae on plants and rocks and a new tank will not have any for them to eat, hence then preferring a more mature set-up. They will cope with the pellets I am sure. If you have a problem with water conditions I would expect it to show first in the clowns as they are very sensitive to water conditions. If the fish are still acting normally and feeding well, I would not worry about their colouration too much at this point. Plecs are nocturnal so will be more active at night. Besides, as fish go, they don't move much anyway Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vapo Posted June 29, 2005 Author Report Share Posted June 29, 2005 They are the common type I believe. Brown and spotty, one has stripes on the tail rather than spots (good for telling them apart), but both look basically the same. After watching them for quite a while today, I noticed that they looked OK most of the time, but now and then faded out in places. They very quickly went back to their normal colouring, so I guess they are just a bit moody occasionally? Spotty is definitely more dominant than Stripe and often chases him/her out of the cave in the hill. This is usually when the coluor fade comes about, so when we get our 100L up and cycling, (yep, we're probably gonna come down with MTS) we'll probably put Stripe in there to keep the algae down. Hope this sorts them out. BTW, after doing about 35-40% water change this morning, the ammonia levels are back to 0 tonight. Thanks for the excellent advice everyone. Will keep those water changes up daily for a couple of weeks. Does 10-15% per day sound alright? *EDIT* Forgot to say we vacuumed the substrate quite rigorously when doing the water change. Cheers, Vapo. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vapo Posted June 29, 2005 Author Report Share Posted June 29, 2005 Oh, one more thing, can anyone tell me how to 'sex' my plecs? Would love to be able to breed 'em one day. Cheers, Vapo. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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