my bristle noses keep dieing

littlebobecki

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Jun 14, 2016
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inverness
hallo everyone! I am having real trouble in the last year getting my bristlenoses to stay alive, I have kept comunity tanks of angels and discus for 5 yrs or more and in the past my plecs were hardy, long lived and robust. I have a happy aquarium with all occupants regularly spawning. I have two established tanks....one is 130litres and the other is 520 litres. Water quality is good and well attended.....ammonia and nitrate are zero as you would expect from an established aquarium and nitrates are usually about 5ppm. Temp for the discus and angels is 29 celcius and all are thriving.
BUT.....in the last year....everytime I add a plec (bristle or rubber nose) they are dead with in 24hrs....sometimes a few days more.
I am tearing my hair out.....I just dont know what is going wrong....and I dont want to be a plec murder so I have stopped buying them......I wish I knew what the problem is, because I really would like plecs in my aquarium. I know how to aclimate properly.......I thought it might be the temperature....so I set the 130 litre tank up at 26 celcius with my baby angels and some neons ....no joy......I thought perhaps the discus and the angels were bullying......but watched for hours and no......I have heard that they find being transported very stressful and it can lead to a bacterial thing in their intestines....could this be the problem?....sometimes they twitch....like they have hiccups before they die.......can anyone help?:cry:
 

Bigjohnnofish

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Apr 15, 2010
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Perth, Western Australia
pretty sure you have a parasitic problem - you have to be doing something seriously wrong with water parameters and quality to kill bristlenose...

if your not having any issues with ammonia/nitrite and nitrates are low theres not too much other than big ph swings that kill b/n....

im thinking along the lines of your current fish have become quite immune or tolerant of whatever parasite you may have and when bn hit the tank they have low or no resistance to it....

or one other possibility your getting ammonia/nitrite spikes overnight - but your other fish will be showing signs of this kind of spiking.....

ask a few more opinions and if you get a similar answer we might be onto it...

let us know how you go
 

littlebobecki

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Jun 14, 2016
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inverness
thanks for your reply......I do run a u v steralizer (vecton)......also....the thing that foxes me is that like many hobbiests, I buy fish fairly regularly and sell on fish that I have grown on.......so I have new arrivals from time to time and none of them ever get sick......just wondering, if it is a paracite, why it only effects the bristles?:dk:
 

Bigjohnnofish

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Apr 15, 2010
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Perth, Western Australia
when was last time you changed your UV globe ???

personally not a fan of UVs as your fish dont get much chance to build up any immunity to the common pathogens that are present in aquariums...

there has to be a reason why this is happening... are you buying bristlenose from same source each time ???

heres a long shot - the bn your getting have slowly been acclimatised to high nitrates -> very high nitrates... so high a significant amount of nitrogen is absorbed into their blood stream.... now you take these bn and put them into pristine water conditions... now im not very good at explaining what happens so i'll put it in terms i was taught.... like divers coming up to quick from deep water the nitrogen gases up into bubbles in the blood stream and can kill you... similar sort of principle happens going from super high nitrates to virtually no nitrates in fish....
 

dw1305

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May 5, 2009
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Hi all,
.....Temp for the discus and angels is 29 celcius and all are thriving.
BUT.....in the last year....everytime I add a plec (bristle or rubber nose) they are dead with in 24hrs....sometimes a few days more.
It sounds really strange. I assume it is quite a deep tank? and maybe it doesn't have any plants?

I don't know what filtration you have, but you could try adding an air stone, or other method of increasing oxygenation.

Unexplained plec deaths are often oxygen related.

Have a look here: <"Plecoplanet: Aeration and dissolved oxygen....">.

cheers Darrel
 
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littlebobecki

Member
Jun 14, 2016
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inverness
thanks guys.....the u v steralizer is only 2 months old.....
interesting about the nitrates.....that would make sense.....
I have a planted tank with lots a bogwood and anubis, because I think all fish appreiciate a nice enviroment and it creates natural territories in the tank....infact my ellioti cichlids have just hatched fry again today......if I ever manage to get to the bottom of this weird conundrum, I would super duper love to have my very own baby bristles....I just love the wee guys....but untill I can figure out what the problem is I shall not get anymore for now. I have a fish vet locally, so I thought I might ask them what tests if any could be done on my tank to figure out why?