Confusued about a new Plec

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badger_fruit

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Aug 20, 2008
21
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leeds, uk
Hello everyone, this is my first post here, been lurking and reading various topics and thought i'd join up as I have a question i was hoping I could find help with!

I got a brand new aquarium tank about 1 month ago from my local garden centre and everything is going great with it; initially we had problems, turns out we over-fed the four fancy-tailed goldfish that we had, and one died :(

We replaced him after a few days with another fish (same kind) after taking further advice from the centre, cleaned up the tank and now all is well. We took regular water samples to the chaps at Tong GC (where we got the fish etc from) and they were very impressed we had turned the tank around completely. So pleased, as a reward, we were given another goldfish and a 'butterfly plec'.

So, everything is going great with the fish, you can see pics of the "family" on my website http://badgerfruit.homeip.net/album

BUT the problem lies with the plec. About 2 days ago we gave the tank its first full clean, the sides were getting rather green with algae. We were careful not to disturb the five goldfish and drained about 90% of the water, leaving room for them to swim about and so on. However, could we find the plec? No we could not!!

As you can appreciate, we're kind worried about him (or her!) as we've not seen it for about 3 days now. When we got him, he was clinging to the underside of a rock but when it was lifted out of the water, he made a dash for it. When we removed the decorative castle, he was nowhere to be seen.

My question is quite simple really, should we be concerned that we've not seen him for this long? When he first came to live in the tank, he was very visible, he'd cling to the sides of the tank/castle and not be bothered by the other fish or out-of-tank-life but now we're worried about him but don't wish to disturb the others by fishing around (no pun intended!) for him in the gravel etc.

PLEASE HELP!!!
 
If there are any holes in any of your decorations in the tank then he's probably hiding in there and this is normal. They like to hide. No need to worry.
 
well i hope you didnt keep the castle out of water for a long time, cause he was probably hiding in there. you could get a flash light, and lift the castle so you can see inside. he's probably still in there... I had a clown loach escape my tank when i was changing some stuff around. he was hiding in a plastic log, and when i set it in a bucket, he flopped out. good thing too, cause i was taking that log out for good!
 
Not entirely on the topic of the pleco, but make sure to purchase your own water testing kit, as there probably isn't enough filtration in that tank for as many goldfish as you have.

But speaking of that, the pleco may be stressed/dying due to high ammonia or nitrite levels (goldfish produce a ton of waste and your tank may not be fully cycled) which is why he hasn't been as active, who knows what that place tested for.

Also, 90% I feel is too much water to change at once. Do 50% weekly and if you clean the filter media, don't use tap water as the chlorine will kill the bacteria and make your tank tank longer to cycle, or cycle again.
 
V1xIII;2097643; said:
Not entirely on the topic of the pleco, but make sure to purchase your own water testing kit, as there probably isn't enough filtration in that tank for as many goldfish as you have.

But speaking of that, the pleco may be stressed/dying due to high ammonia or nitrite levels (goldfish produce a ton of waste and your tank may not be fully cycled) which is why he hasn't been as active, who knows what that place tested for.

Also, 90% I feel is too much water to change at once. Do 50% weekly and if you clean the filter media, don't use tap water as the chlorine will kill the bacteria and make your tank tank longer to cycle, or cycle again.
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:iagree:
 
Wow guys, thank you for the super-quick replies!
That's sure put our minds at ease, he is only small and there are plenty of hiding places he could have gotten himself into!

With regards to the nitrate levels and so on, the centre checked a variety of levels, amonia, ph, nitrates and so on and gave it all a clean bill of health. As for how many fish we have, it's a 35l tank and they did say that 5 was the most the tank could cope with (plus a plec (pleco?) for nibbling at the algae). We're going to get our own testing kit but after the initial disaster, the centre suggested we take a sample to them every week - now things are on-track, they said to bring another sample early next month and if all is well they will leave us to our own devices.

Advice taken re: amount of water to change, still learning!
We also cleaned the filter in the water we took out of the tank.

Oh and the castle was out of the water only for a very short period of time (30 seconds or so) while my wife looked under it with a torch so no worries about him drownin.. erm, suffocat...erm, what ever a fish out of water does!
 
I had one that got stuck inside a decoration once and i had to smash it open with a hammer to get him out so he could eat so not being able to find a plec is common you just have to find where he is and make sure he can get out if he wants to
 
steverothery;2097698; said:
Shouldn't really keep a plec with fancy goldfish especially. You may well encounter problems in time.
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"Problems"? What, will they fight or something?
I apologise for being such a noob, the centre actually gave us this plec so we assumed that they would play nicely together and live long into the future!
 
bfhslilred93;2097708; said:
I had one that got stuck inside a decoration once and i had to smash it open with a hammer to get him out so he could eat so not being able to find a plec is common you just have to find where he is and make sure he can get out if he wants to
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1) apologies for double-post, can't find an edit button?
2) how long should we hold out for before we start to rip the tank apart to find the poor little thing?
 
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