Bristlenose problem

vespasian

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Jul 19, 2015
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Any advice would be very much appreciated.
I have a common bristlenose in a 95L tank. There is a fine gravel, lots of bog wood and some slate caves. The tank is planted with java fern, water wisteria, amazon sword and elodia.
The plec shares the tank with a few mixed platies and 6 julii cory.
The water in the tank is: Ph7.2, Gh8, ammonia 0, nitrite 0, nitrate 20, temp 25-6.
I feed with tetra plec pellets, king british algae wafers, cucumber, courgette an occasional tetra shrimp pellet and the odd frozem blood worm (not all at the same time).
The tank is filtered with an eheim pickup 160 and also a hob filter. I also do 20% weekly water changes.
The worry I have is that over the last few days the bn has been trying to climb out, his whole body has been out of the water and I am worried that he could climb out of a small hole in the back of the lid. The tank and bn have been there for over a year now and I have never seen him try this before.
Sorry for the long winded post but any ideas as to why this might be happening would be most welcome.
Forgot to mention that there is also ayoung L187b plec in there too but they have both been living happily together for 4 months now.
 
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Brengun

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I don't think the oxygen supply is getting down low enough for your bottom dweller.
You should add one or more airstones, or air curtain or bubble wall or a couple of air sponge filters.

Also do you gravel vac the rubbish in the gravel? Over time especially a year or more problems can arise if the gravel is not maintained.
 
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vespasian

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Thanks for the reply. The tank does already have 2 air stones in it and the eheim filter also has a venturi.
When doing my weekly water changes I also vac the gravel, about half one week and the other half the next week.
 

Bigjohnnofish

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unusual behaviour always makes me want to find out more... if this behaviour is consistant there is definitely something a miss....

dont think its an oxygen problem... unless plants are using up too much oxygen during day and producing too much carbon dioxide at night.... but you would have to have tank full of plants for this to happen... if your filtration is running 24/7 and the airstones then this shouldnt happen...

my next thought is your b/n has some sort of gill issue and cant get enough oxygen.... possible parasitic problem... or bacterial/fungal/viral problem....

keep an eye on all your other fish to see if they start to show any symptoms of discomfort....

also maybe recheck nitrate test... are you shaking the test bottles hard enough for long enough to thoroughly mix.??? if you dont shake well you will get low ball readings... 20% waterchange once a week may not be enough of a water change to keep things under control... nitrates might creep up over time...
 

vespasian

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Thanks for taking the time to help.
The behaviour is very unusual and I am trying to think of anything that could be causing it. The filtitr and air stones are running 24/7. Like you say the tank would need to be full of plants to be using up all the oxygen. None of the other fish are showing any signs of distress. The platies are breeding happily (i know its hard to stop them) and the corys are displaying their normal playful behaviour, the L187b is also doing well.
I use an API master liquid test kit and I know that the nitrate test is not the most accurate but I do shake the living daylights out of it. I have done some daily water changes the last few days, checking the nitrate levels of my tap water as well and all seems normal.
I am now rather confused as well as worried.
Any other ideas would be most welcome.
 

dw1305

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Hi all,
unless plants are using up too much oxygen during day and producing too much carbon dioxide at night.... but you would have to have tank full of plants for this to happen...
This is actually a misconception, in most circumstances planted tanks will have higher dissolved oxygen levels than non planted ones.

When you have fish death due to low oxygen in a planted tank it will always happen at night when the plants are respiring, but not photosynthesizing. This leads to the obvious conclusion that the plants have caused the fish death, and right at the point of death this is correct, but....

Because plants add oxygen to the tank water and remove ammonia, before it enters biological filtration, the tank water will be fully saturated with dissolved oxygen at the end of the photo-period, and so will the internal tissue of the leaf. When plants are respiring at night, the majority of their oxygen usage will actually be from this internal oxygen.

In an un-planted tank low oxygen levels can occur at any time of the day or night, but the carrying capacity, the total bio-load that can be supported
of the tank system, will be less.

In tanks with similar filtration and stocking, one planted, one not planted, as the fish grow low oxygen levels, and fish death, will occur in the un-planted tank a long time before they do in the planted one.

The only time this scenario isn't true, is when you have very low rates of water turn-over, where local de-oxygenation of the lower levels of the water can occur. This is a particular problem if you have a lot of floating plants.

Assuming you have some water turn-over, like the OP does, the problems their BN is having could still be low oxygen levels, if the tap water has been treated with emergency chloramine? This often happens when there is water main work (new house build?) locally.

If you could try a water change with cooler water (rain-water?) and your BN returns to the bottom of the tank, then dissolved oxygen would be likely to be the problem.

cheers Darrel
 

vespasian

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Thanks for the help.
According to my local water authority website there is no maintenance taking place at the moment, I have had problems because of that in the past though. I treat all new water with seachem prime. I will try to collect some rain water for doing a water change. The only worry I would have about that is that I live in a big city near a motorway and would worry about the presents of heavy metals in the water. would that be something to cause concern?l
 

dw1305

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Hi all,
According to my local water authority website there is no maintenance taking place at the moment, I have had problems because of that in the past though. I treat all new water with seachem prime. I will try to collect some rain water for doing a water change. The only worry I would have about that is that I live in a big city near a motorway and would worry about the presents of heavy metals in the water. would that be something to cause concern?l
Have a look at the Daphnia bioassay
.... I use rain-water, and have done since the 1970's, in the S & SE of the UK you don't need to add much buffering because the rain-water picks up quite a lot of lime-stone dust from roofs etc.

One proviso is that in arable agricultural areas, you have the risk of pesticide drift in your rain-water, you can either filter through activated charcoal, or use a "Daphnia bio-assay". The bio-assay is a real scientific technique <"http://ei.cornell.edu/toxicology/bioassays/daphnia/">, because Daphnia are very sensitive to water conditions, but it just consists of putting a starter culture of Daphnia (either caught in a pond or bought from the LFS) and then checking that the water you draw off for your water changes has Daphnia in it.

Swimming Daphnia = your water is good.
From <"Getting the right mix..">.

cheers Darrel
 
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Bigjohnnofish

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if you have cause to worry about heavy metals add some EDTA to you tank...
you'll actually find seachem prime contains EDTA in it anyway....
EDTA = Ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid which bonds with heavy metal ions in the water making them inert... so i have been told :thumbup:
 

vespasian

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Thanks for that. That would then be two bits of good news as I have seachem prime and It has been raining like its a monsoon here today, so I now have a decent amount of rain water too. I will use it to do a big water change tomorrow. Do you think I should do 80%? Or would daily smaller ones be better?
 

dw1305

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Hi all,
I will use it to do a big water change tomorrow. Do you think I should do 80%? Or would daily smaller ones be better?
Doesn't have to be 80%, but I'd try a fairly large water change (50%?) with slightly cooler water. If it is an oxygen issue, the Bristlenose should return to the lower levels of the tank pretty much straight away.

cheers Darrel
 

Bigjohnnofish

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if your using rain water just be careful your kh doesnt bottom out and then trigger ph crash and subsequent slow rise in ammonia as beneficial bacteria will stop ammonia,nitrite conversion...

kh is basically a measure of carbonates in your water... every living thing consumes carbonates in your tank.... normally your tap water will have a good level of kh in it - approx 4 degrees of kh... so regular water changes tops up your kh and you never experience ph crash etc... its the carbonates that also buffer your ph and keep it steady...

but with rain water it can be deficient in kh so just be weary and perhaps test it :thumbup:
 

vespasian

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Thanks again.
Unfortunately I don't have a Kh test, I will have to get one asap. I held off with doing the rain water change today after seeing johnno's post. I don't know if this would be any good to do but would it be possible to remineralize the rain water with a little tap water (like using RO water)?
 

dw1305

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Hi all,
I don't know if this would be any good to do but would it be possible to remineralize the rain water with a little tap water (like using RO water)?
Yes you can do. I don't test the dKH, but I measure the conductivity, and mix rainwater and tap (about 17dKH) to give tank water at ~120microS (~80ppm TDS).

If you live in the S. or E. of the UK You will probably find that the rain-water is already dKH buffered from lime rich dust in the atmosphere.

cheers Darrel
 

Bigjohnnofish

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gee if your rainwater is absorbing that much kh in the form of limestone dust - what else does it contain ? sounds like tap water might be better option...
i live up in the perth hills in western australia and our rainwater has zero kh and is very drinkable...
 

vespasian

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Thanks for the replies. I live in Northumberland and the geology is generally pretty hard (metamorphic granites), so I would imagine the rain water would be fairly soft. I have now done a water change with the rain water and added some tap water to buffer it a little. I will be keeping a close eye on the pH levels.
 

dw1305

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Hi all,
gee if your rainwater is absorbing that much kh in the form of limestone dust what else does it contain ? sounds like tap water might be better option...
Depends a little bit where you live, the problem for us in the UK is that a huge number of us live on a tiny island, mainly in the South. This impacts on both rain water and tap water quality.


Thanks for the replies. I live in Northumberland and the geology is generally pretty hard (metamorphic granites), so I would imagine the rain water would be fairly soft. I have now done a water change with the rain water and added some tap water to buffer it a little. I will be keeping a close eye on the pH levels.
You may find that your tap water is very low in carbonates, a lot of water in the UK is now soft, but alkaline with a high pH. This is because the water companies are adding NaOH to raise the pH and stop lead (Pb) and copper (Cu) from old pipes going into solution.

This raises pH (pH is a measure of the H+:OH- ratio, and you've added OH- ions), but it doesn't add any buffering, because all the OH- ions are in solution. Have a look at this thread <"http://www.plecoplanet.com/forum/showthread.php?t=9323">

You should be able to get water parameters from your water supplier.

cheers Darrel
 
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vespasian

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I have been away for work for a while but I did the rain water water changes and left instructions with my better half to do some while I was away. I am very happy to report that my pleco is back to his normal happy and lively self.
Thank you very much for your help and advice, from both me and Def the bn plec.