Its times like these....
- Thread starter Bogwoodbruce
- Start date
First, sorry for the loss.Bogwoodbruce;3142403; said:That i really want to pack it all in....
Over the last few days by big royal pleco hasnt been 100% his usual self hes been a little off colour so ive tested the water and was fine, so i did a few extra waterchanges and gave his come potatoe and other treat foods that he likes and hes been ok and i got home from the shop today and found him dead..... im absolutly gutted! loved this fish to bits, tested water and its still ok, a little bit of nitrate but nothing that could have done this, so ive done another round of waterchanges. Had him a couple of months now and really loved this fish i go out and see and talk to him and things.
Probably down to old agewell i messured him and he was bang on 15" and huge girth a few crappy phone pix not in the mood to get anything decent.
But it does not look like it was old age to me. You only got it about 2 months ago which is the first sign that is was not. Secondly it seems your tank does not have nearly enough drift wood in tank for a royal that size and the drift wood looks hard. What else were you feeding it? I suspect it was due to dietry problems.
"Gutted" would be a good way to describe how I'd feel to lose my favorite Royal, too. I really feel for you. There's just no way we can duplicate exactly what a fish gets in the wild. We keep them safe from predators, do our best to give them fresh water and what food we can. But it's not always enough. He was beautiful.
Very sorry for your loss Bruce. It was a stunner. AshDavid has a valid point about hard driftwood. Although before I knew better I had my royal with nothing but mopani for several months with no obvious ill effects. Much smaller fish though. I do not remember seeing pics of your set up but they will go through some driftwood for sure. My 5"er has taken a 5" diameterx16"long piece of driftwood down to about 4" in diameter in less than a year(rough estimate). I have that and a larger piece of mopani on the other side of the tank and it clearly prefers the one softer piece over the mopani.
I could be incorrect on the wood being mopani but it is very dense none the less.
I could be incorrect on the wood being mopani but it is very dense none the less.
