L330 that I lost to illness (picture heavy)

[oscar300]

So this is the guy I got and lost due to the illness/poor condition he was in. He was about 9"ish. I was gutted when I lost her, she got her colour back and started eating then bam, all to much for her. I know we have some good plec heads here so anybody good at diagnosing illness? See how she looked like her skin was dry and cracked? I treated with melafix and primafix. She was a fresh inport to my door.

 

[oscar300]

The pictures are her poorly and when she was looking better.

 

[davo]

first off, sorry about your loss. um im not big on royals but i no your not supposed to treat the water with medications, or do so in small amounts. how much you use? The medications become concentrated in the algae and bogwood, and when the fish eats these, it often is poisoned to death. These fish are also subject to intestinal disease if not fed the proper diet. They are very sensitive to changes in water chemistry, has there been any change? Recently imported specimen often suffer from malnutrition and as a result are hollow-bellied. Thus it is important to offer them high-fiber foods in order for them to recover. Algae; fruit; vegetables; peas, spinach, lettuce; live; crustaceans, insect larvae. Panaque species must have a large amount of "green foods" in their diet or they may develop intestinal disorders.

a few other questions- what were you feeding it. how long was it "ill". what were you're water peramiters? did it have many places to hide, or any more agressive and faster feeding tankmates? was it feeding correctly? and was it just the skin of it that made it look ill, or were there any other probs like sunken belly etc.

 

[oscar300]

I had the fish for 10 days. Water was tested through out and never found to be untoward. Melafix and primafix was added in full doses. The fish had a sunken belly. She ate courgett, cucumber, prawn and catfish pellets. I wouldnt say she was eating normaly, more of a nibble here and there. Nothing like what a large royal should do. She was boss of the tank and had a large cave formed out of drift wood around the filter stack. She was the dominant fish in the tank.

As for wood soaking up meds and the fish digesting it, that is new to me. I ran carbon after the treatment but I still medicate my plecs with these products. Also over time the wood has seen WSE3 (malachite green (spelling!!)).
Whatever she had it was not spread to other fish.

Also as a note, she had a bacterial infection as well (white stringy poo) Although this as well seemed to be going away.

I read that panaques that are kept in holding tanks without wood can struggle to adapt due to there bodys not getting enough nutriants?

I thought she looked like she needed a good vitamen pill.

 

[davo]

im not sure on bogwoods, i have heard they can. however i am definate on algae and i know that any algae in the tank, which royals actively seek out, will become concentrated in meds, and poison it. i think if it had the white stringy crap, and a hollow belly it sounds like an internal parasite, which is far to common in this variety of pleco. its weird that royals seem to be the most sensitive to all these things, other plecs it does not seem to affect as much (meds wise) but yea id stay away with plecs with sunken bellies -ESPECIALLY any royal. yea they definately need the bogwood, they go through it quicker than most sp. of plec. The internal parasite, is prob what led to her not feeding properly. it will also make the pleco more suseptable to other illnesses, as the parasite is literally living off her. that probably explains the skin problem as to why it occured

 

[oscar300]

Yeah cant argue with any of that mate. She came to me a a fresh inport so I couldnt refuse her. Did my best to save her but as we all know its not all ways up to us. I thought I had a fighting chance as he eyes wernt in yet. Thanks for the tip on the meds, will have to watch that in future.

 

[davo]

yea most recent imported suffer malnutrition and pick up the parasites easy. good on you for trying it, occasionally itll work for you, but in my experience, it isnt worth the money. sorry that it didnt work out though dude

 

[Honda12]

Thats sucks man she was nice, same thing happened to me with my royal. Got it with a suncken belly, mine lasted a couple weeks though.

We had a a guy come in that specialized in plecos to our fish club and said that any sp. of pleco that eats wood has a specieal chemical in its stomach to better help digest it. He said that if they are poorly fed and dont have any wood to chew on by the time they get to us that the chemical can disipear from their stomachs, and that at that point there is no chance in saveing them or it is very hard.

I don't really know how it all works, but he said they have the chemical in them when they start out and when they lose it there is a chance that they can get it back from a healthy pleco in the tank that eats wood.

I don't know how much of this is true but he has videos of lots of rare plecos that he has bred and brought in a bunch of rare stuff to sell in my club.

 

[davo]

Thats sucks man she was nice, same thing happened to me with my royal. Got it with a suncken belly, mine lasted a couple weeks though.

We had a a guy come in that specialized in plecos to our fish club and said that any sp. of pleco that eats wood has a specieal chemical in its stomach to better help digest it. He said that if they are poorly fed and dont have any wood to chew on by the time they get to us that the chemical can disipear from their stomachs, and that at that point there is no chance in saveing them or it is very hard.

I don't really know how it all works, but he said they have the chemical in them when they start out and when they lose it there is a chance that they can get it back from a healthy pleco in the tank that eats wood.

I don't know how much of this is true but he has videos of lots of rare plecos that he has bred and brought in a bunch of rare stuff to sell in my club.

that sounds cool as sh*t. yea thats why they should be fed a lot of roughage aswell as the wood. it does them good. you wana buy me some rare plecos and ship me some over? what kinda stuff does he get?

 

[Honda12]

If I knew how to ship I and you lived closer I would. He lives in Chicago and one of my friends in my fish club is friends with him so if I needed to get a hold of him I could. I don't remeber to much of what he brought, but he did bring in 8 real zebra plecos in to sell that he bred. They only wen't for $40 to $50 dollars, and it sucked cause I only had $20 with me. Other wise I would have got a couple. He also brought in a small scarlet, and a few chubby plecos.