What Am I doing wrong?

[werdna]

i may be new to this site but i do have experience with plecos... test your water and make sure that the filter is working also... check ur temp... but idk plecos are hardy fish and i have heard stories of them losing their tail due to young children grabbing them out of the water... then again i have nvr had a gold nugget

 

[WyldFya]

Under what circumstances did the gold nuggets die?? You said the first it looked like a fungal problem... but was there a sign of this or just fungus when you found it dead? The reason I ask is that often Bushy/Bristle nose plecos are very aggressive, and especially in a tank that small. How big is the Bristle nose pleco? Plecos of the bristle type have very large and gnarly barbs near there gills, more so than other plecos. Plecos often will get aggressive over good hiding places even in larger aquariums. I had a 5" Bristle take out a 10" chocolate pleco, and then a chocolate catfish, 2 striped raphaels a banjo cat and a whiptail before I gave him to the LFS. Temperment on many plecos are fairly tame, this however is not one of the passive plecos.

In terms of knowing if it is a bushynose just look at the nose of the pleco. Bushys have short growths off the front of there noses fairly small relative to Bristlenoses.

 

[guppy]

The fact that there is nitrites in your tank is not a good thing and you could lose more fish.

I think maybe the move of the media into the new filter could of caused the problem. What you could of done is let the new filter run with the old filter still in place for a few weeks and let the bacteria build up in the new filter.

Definitely need to get rid of the spike before any new fish are added as the nitrite will be deadly to newly acclimidated fish who will already be under stress.

Hasi, he said nitrates, not nitrites, 20-30 is a bit high for my taste but only over long term.

 

[Hasi]

Ahh ok i see the other post about nitrates but i was refering to this one:

The tank has been setup since september. It origonally had an aqua clear 50 and fluval 2 internal filters. its a 30 gallon tank.

I recently upgraded the aquaclear to a 110 and put the old material into the new filter and had been in there 2 weeks before i had added the pleco. I removed the filter material last night after i found the pleco dead.

Water perameters

7.4 - 7.6 PH
0 Ammonia
.26 nitrites
0 nitrates.

Im guessing the small increase in nitrites are from the removal of the older more usewd filter material.

The tank has the following fish hence the larger filter

6 Black Skirt tetras
5 Neons
5 other tetras
6 Head N Tail tetras
6 panda Cories
2 Fire Gourami's
1 Blue Dwarf gourami
1 Skunk Loach
1 Supposedly Bushy Nose Pleco

 

[guppy]

I missed that.

 

[Dragon]

I agree, too many fish in that size tank. Nitrites aren't as bad as ammonia and nitrates, but still not that good. I would do a 25-30% water change, let that settle a little and then test again. Don't add any more fish until you solve the mystery. Do the water change with a python or other rock vacuum. You may just have too much waste settled at the bottom from all those fish. Good luck.