Has anyone kept L172a (Leporacanthicus heterodon); mine keep dying :(

[jake37]

I purchased several L172a after reading up them and someone mentioning they were fairly out gowing but the ones i've purchased are dying after 8 weeks and they look like they might be starving. Do these require some special treatment or water. I can't find a whole lot of information - water paramters:
ec 180 (tds 90); kh 1-2 gh 3-4 and nitrate near 0.
current is only modest from sump (this is a 450 gallon that is 4 feet wide and 8 feet long); lots of live plants and drift wood.
The aquarium has a few live snails and i put in raw zuchani at least once a week. The snails tend to collect on it in this aquarium - in my 550 the L206 and bn as well as festum usually eat the zucani in a few hours.

 

[Milingu]

What do you feed them?

 

[jake37]

What do you feed them?

Combination of foods including omega catfish pellets; sera tropical fish flakes; bug bites; raw zucchini; zoo med spirulina 20 flakes; ... the blue phantoms are doing well as well as the whiptails. The catch is the aquarium is 4 feet front to back and most of the food is put in the front - the current is strong enough that flakes will get to the back but the other food mostly is in front.

 

[Milingu]

Afaik L172a in nature feed mostly on mollusks, crustaceans and carrion. I would try to feed them with prawns, mussels, earthworms etc. they might simply be starving due to lack of protein.

 

[phreeflow]

That’s pretty common for a lot of imported plecos. You should quarantine and deworm them as they’re mostly wild caught. Being bottom feeders, they’re prone to internal parasites.

Mine go through a round of praziquantel, followed by levamisole. New Life Spectrum used to offer medicated pellets that were great for deworming my plecos but I haven't seen that in a while but might be worth a search.

 

[jake37]

I tried feeding them raw shrimp but they didn't seem to care much for that.

 

[Fallen_Leaves16]

Heterodon, often collected from deeper waters of the lower reaches of the Rio Xingu, prefer faster flow, warmer temperatures, and a carnivorous diet (mostly composed of freshwater sponges and insect larvae, supplemented by what vegetation they can find, or so I'm told). What I find with loricariids such as Pseudancistrus, Spectracanthus, Oligancistrus (can't recall if it was ever officially merged with Spectracanthus or not), Baryancistrus, etc. is that keepers neglect the overall significance of temperature. When water temps are too low, their metabolisms slow and the fish are unable to properly digest anything after a while; slowly wasting away until death. It's a rather long-term deterioration that happens within a span of a good couple months. Supposedly Heterodon is one of the few Leporacanthicus more susceptible to problems with temperature; aside from L473, at least.
Higher temperatures (within a margin comfortable for the fish, at least) seem to increase appetite as well.
I agree that it could very easily be parasites, though. Would probably be best to follow phreeflow's advice with medicating the fish.

 

[jake37]

Heterodon, often collected from deeper waters of the lower reaches of the Rio Xingu, prefer faster flow, warmer temperatures, and a carnivorous diet (mostly composed of freshwater sponges and insect larvae, supplemented by what vegetation they can find, or so I'm told). What I find with loricariids such as Pseudancistrus, Spectracanthus, Oligancistrus (can't recall if it was ever officially merged with Spectracanthus or not), Baryancistrus, etc. is that keepers neglect the overall significance of temperature. When water temps are too low, their metabolisms slow and the fish are unable to properly digest anything after a while; slowly wasting away until death. It's a rather long-term deterioration that happens within a span of a good couple months. Supposedly Heterodon is one of the few Leporacanthicus more susceptible to problems with temperature; aside from L473, at least.
Higher temperatures (within a margin comfortable for the fish, at least) seem to increase appetite as well.
I agree that it could very easily be parasites, though. Would probably be best to follow phreeflow's advice with medicating the fish.

Well the aquarium temp is 78 which i believe is mid range for that species but perhaps i am mistkaen. I feed my geo in that aquarium lots of bug bites (in addition to foods with green - i have 8 but they are still very young around 1 to 1.5 inch); while bug bites are not live food they should at least have the protein that L172a is look to consume (if he will eat non-live food).

 

[Milingu]

78 is not mid range. That's absolute bottom temperature for most Xingu rapids fish. For some even too low.

 

[jake37]

78 is not mid range. That's absolute bottom temperature for most Xingu rapids fish. For some even too low.

What is the proper range? I chose 78 based off seriously fish (https://www.seriouslyfish.com/species/leporacanthicus-heterodon/ 72-79) and planetcatfish (78-84).

I can raise the temp a bit or try to move them to the discus tank which is 83.