stressed pleco

[blam]

hey guys, I have a 6" Goldspot pleco and I can't figure out what's stressing him.

he is housed in a 29Gallon tank with a cave he calls his own along with 3 small pictus and some small barbs, the other fish no signs of stress.

I monitor the tank often at different time of the day and as far as I can tell none of the other fish are bothering him.

he has had heavy breathing on and off for a couple weeks now.

he's fairly active when no one is watching him otherwise he hides in his cave. I always see him swimming back to his cave when I walk up to the tank or turn on a room light sometimes he continues with his wall sucking for a bit before returning to his cave

ammonia levels are 0-.25

nitrite levels are 0

nitrates are 5-10

temperature is at ~25ºC

I do weekly 4-8 gallon water changes and gravel vacuums.

He eats regularly. I feed him mushroom or zucchinni - he stopped eating sinking wafers, tried 2 different brands with no luck, sometimes he'll nibble on the hikari wafers but usually never finished them

any ideas would be much appreciated.

thanks

[BettaFishMommy]

i would say it is the trace amount of ammonia in the water that is bothering him. he may just be more sensitive than the other fish, and that is why he's showing effects and they are not.

i'd do a water change, minimum 50%, and hopefully that will bring your ammonia back to zero. keep monitoring with your test kit and do more water changes if necessary to keep it at zero until the tank stabilizes again. i would also test for nitrite to make sure that stays at zero.

i'm just wondering why the ammonia is present. has this tank been set up for a while or is it fairly new? has anything happened that would be the cause of the ammonia spike? change of filter media, overzealous gravel vac, etc?

IMO, your water change schedule could be bumped up some, as 4 to 8 gallons per week comes to much less than 25% to 50% and the pleco alone would make enough waste to require a larger volume changed out. that size tank, those fish, i would do at least 40% weekly.

do you have a spare tank to set up for quarantining the pleco if necessary?

[blam]

i have a 5 gallon tank i can quarantine him in if need be.

the tank is about 2-3 months old.

and I changed the filter earlier this week, which may may have contributed to the small ammonia spike.

the ammonia levels have been 0 for quite some time now. i said 0-.25 because my test kit shows 0 as yellow, .25 as light green and my test came out to a dark yellow.

I will start bumping up my water changes. to see if that helps.

thanks

[BettaFishMommy]

i have a 5 gallon tank i can quarantine him in if need be.

i don't believe that size tank would be large enough to hold him for the length of time needed without stressing him and the water quality going way downhill fast. you are in edmonton? i have a 10 gallon that would work much better i could lend to you or if you wanted you could buy it off me. i could also spare some media from another filter in an established tank so that your quarantine tank is not going to be cycling while you tend to the stressed pleco.

the tank is about 2-3 months old.

i would say this isn't a fully established tank yet. although it may have cycled fully, a few months is not long enough and you may still be going through mini cycles and spikes.

and I changed the filter earlier this week, which may may have contributed to the small ammonia spike.

yes, changing out all the filter media would contribute to the spike, as you are removing all the beneficial bacteria from the filter when you replace media. it is better to rinse out the media in a bucket of tank water you have removed during a water change, as this preserves a majority of the good bacteria. i've never replaced sponges or biomax in any of my filters, and the only media i fully replace is the filter floss, since it gunks up too much and is not really rinse-able.

[blam]

I have a biowheel filter so i put in a new filter, running with the old filter and removed the old filter 1-2 weeks later to avoid removing a large amount of the BB

I'll keep an eye on the tank and see what happens over the next month or 2 and hope things dont go south

thanks.

[BettaFishMommy]

keep me posted on your pleco finkid, and if you do decide you need the 10 just let me know. IMO, it's always good to have a spare tank laying around that could accommodate any size fish you have for quarantine purposes. in my case i have four empty tanks, lol!