Sick or stressed Gar??

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I just got my gar a few days ago and have had a Pleco for a couple years now. Should I give my Pleco to the LFS? Definitly don't want him sucking on my gar.
 
oh yeah, discontinue use of the API protozoan, etc quick cure...your fish doesn't have ich or protozoan parasites. keep using the salt though.

stress coat can help, but doing the large water changes will help more. we'll wait two days and then i can give a couple recommendations on antibios depending on how the fish is looking--
--solomon
 
CrazyJ;3750016; said:
I just got my gar a few days ago and have had a Pleco for a couple years now. Should I give my Pleco to the LFS? Definitly don't want him sucking on my gar.
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yes, i would definitely get rid of the pleco. although it doesn't happen in EVERY case (there are always exceptions to combos), it only takes one time for the pleco to slime suck to potentially lead to something like we see in these pics. in most cases these stages are too late for recovery; so yes, if you value the gar over the pleco, i would get rid of the pleco--
--solomon
 
E_americanus;3750024; said:
yes, i would definitely get rid of the pleco. although it doesn't happen in EVERY case (there are always exceptions to combos), it only takes one time for the pleco to slime suck to potentially lead to something like we see in these pics. in most cases these stages are too late for recovery; so yes, if you value the gar over the pleco, i would get rid of the pleco--
--solomon
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Thanks for the advice, I will send him for adoption. My cat will be sad, he loves the Pleco. :)
 
Ok, thanks for the help, I will do this and keep everyone updated on the status. The gar and the pleco never had a problem being in the same tank, they have been together since I got them I have never seen the pleco attack the gar, only while I was gone did this happen I guess. Does anyone know if the slime coat products work or is it best to let it recover on its own naturally?
Thanks again!
 
Just to give everybody an update, his tank is now heated, at 80 degrees, I added these before I saw these posts, he looked worse But I've added a slime coat replenisher as well as a bacteria fighter to the water, I was told they could be mixed no problem, before I did the water change and added everything he was floating oddly on the floor, it seemed like he was having a hard time keeping his body upright, but since I've added everything he has been swimming around the tank quite a bit. hopefully this is a sign of recovery.
 
good luck with it, next time do take the time to do some reading before hand, it'll definately help avoiding situations such as this.
 
Ok well my pleco which I changed to another tank is also starting to loose his color just like the gar. Could this be an indication its something in the water?
 
PoppaBear;3760920; said:
Well just want to say thanks for the advice, but my pleco's color is changing as well losing its color, just like the gar has, so its something in water obviously, propably from the guy I had feeding him not properly seperating the feeders; and not the pleco sucking the slime coat. so Since I followed the advice and seperated the pleco into my quarentee tank, looks like I'll prob loose all of my fish instead of just the gar. And as for the future with gar ownership I'll continue to follow the instructions of the gar specialist who I bought the fish from to begin with.
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this is not necessarily correct by any means. the symptoms your gar shows is classic slime-sucking induced bacterial infection. when a fish is open to this kind of infection, usually to bacteria that are already present (quite normally so) in the water, they develop infection and that in turn can be passed on to other fishes. this is most likely what happened.

if you follow the instructions of the "gar specialist" who sold you the fish (assuming he said it was ok to keep it with plecos) then you'll more than likely end up with the same problem again.

it's been posted many times over on this forum and many others that plecos are not good tankmates for gars, i would HIGHLY suggest reading up on these fish thoroughly before keeping one in the future. had this been done, the whole scenario would have likely been avoided. in a decade of keeping all 7 species of gars, i have never seen them catch a bacterial infection "from feeders" in the way you describe or show these symptoms. slime-sucking, however, has resulted in these symptoms countless times.

sorry for your losses if the fishes die, but separating them was not the further cause of your fish issues--
--solomon
 
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