I'm new here and have questions about Gold Nugget Pleco's

[Riftrod]

7 Days ago brought home (4) 3 1/2" Gold nuggets (L-18)Placed them temp. in a 10 gal. tank with (3) med size angel fish. One pleco starved itself after 5 days. Fed nightly; pleco algae wafers and fresh zuccini. Also frozen brine shrimp & frozen blood worms, every other day. Other (3) plecos are still alive. Had tank set up with hiding places (wood) and 1 anubias nana plant. Initial LFS bag water was 7.6 PH. Slowly dropped tank water to 6.5 PH. Cleaned my cannister filter, and Ph rose overnite to 7.6. Now lowering PH slowly to 7.0. Maintaining water temp. at 78.5 F. w strong water return from cannister into tank. Recently learned these gold nuggets are very sensitive cats and any suggestions on PH, other types of food, etc would be appreciated. How long should I wait to move Plecos into my 40 Gal?

[dead_serious]

Your 100% correct, these fish are very hard to keep. But they can be kept successfully. The problem that I see is you have a very over stocked tank. Angels when fully grown they will need 10 gallons of water each, not only this you said that you had one other plecos. My guess is that it is a common and in a year or two they will be BIG, and eventually grow to the size of your 2ft tank.

Will you be using the same equipment from the 10gal and use it in the 40gal? Then I would say when you think your plecos can handle the stress of being moved. If you are using a new filter it will need to be cycled.

[Riftrod]

Running a Fluval 303 Cannister filter + a sponge filter on the 10 gal. Have three gold nugget plecos left, and the three med. angelfish. My 40 gallon tank is 35 inches long but I have 50+ Bristle nose pleco fry in it. I can't wait another 3-4 months to finish raising the BN's to saleable size because I may lose all my gold nuggets and the angelfish in this overcrowded 10 gallon tank. Running a Magnum 350 cannister filter (without the bio wheels) on the 40 Gal tank and that tank water and the filter is cycled ok. Will have to match the PH in the 40 gal (to the 10 gal tank) before I try moving the gold nuggets into it with the angelfish. My latest thought is I may have to sacrifice some of the Bristle nose fry and only move the largest ones into the 10 gal. since I have no other tanks and since my wife will not let me move the 50 fry into our bathtub.

[racoll]

Initial LFS bag water was 7.6 PH. Slowly dropped tank water to 6.5 PH. Cleaned my cannister filter, and Ph rose overnite to 7.6. Now lowering PH slowly to 7.0.

All this pH bouncing around is really not going to help a sensitive fish such as Baryancistrus to settle down to life in the aquarium, and begin feeding.


What are you using to adjust your pH?

If you are using any products to do this, I would recommend you stop immediately, and just use plain tapwater.

If you're not adding anything, and the pH is bouncing around on its own, I would get hold of a KH test kit and find out how much buffering capacity you have.

You don't give a location in your profile (its a forum rule), so I can't guess as to how soft your water may be.

If it is too soft to hold a stable pH, I would add some buffer such as bicarbonate of soda to the tank to allow the tank to stabilise. This should be done very slowly over several days.


The food you are offering is fine, although at this stage I would stick to the bloodworm, shrimp and algae wafers (preferably hikari), as these are more immediately palatable.

Start on the veg once you have them feeding on the wafers.

Measure ammonia and nitrite every day, as a common mistake when acclimating new plecs is to pile loads of food into the tank. Uneaten food that you may not notice will breakdown in the tank and poison your new fish very quickly. I have a hunch that this is a big part of the reason why many people find it hard to feed their new plecs.

Maintaining water temp. at 78.5 F

This is too cool for these Baryancistrus. Slowly up the temp over several days to 83/85F.

This will help to stimulate the appetite. Be very careful though, as there will be less oxygen available. Keep an eye on gill rate, and add more aeration if necessary.

I would also keep the tank as dark as possible. Bright fluorescent tubes will not help them settle down. More dark hiding places are also good.

How long should I wait to move pl*cos into my 40 Gal?

Tough question. I would agree that the 10g is too small, and as you have noticed, it is not a stable environment for them. In such a small tank, uneaten food (very likely at this stage) will foul the water really quickly.

However, the Baryancistrus may not be able to compete for food in the 40g with all the bristlenose fry.


I hope I have been of some help, and that your new fish settle down OK.

[Riftrod]

Thanks for your detailed reply. I read your article on water chemistry & Plecos / very informative.

I don't have a water hardness test kit/will buy one asap. 7 days ago when I brought the gold nugget plecos home, I used: Wardley '3 in 1' (7.0) Water Conditioner. It buffers to 7.0 PH, It is an Ammonia nutralizer and it eliminates chlorine and chloramines.
The instructions recommended for 'water maintenance and water changes' use one teaspoon per 10 gallons of water. That's how much I used in the 10 gallon water.
Problem was water was 6.5 PH before this. Instead of PH coming up to 7.0 PH, it rose to 7.6 PH. Plecos were put in 10 gal tank prior to this adjustment. Good thing I didn't use more than one teaspoon. Reread the instructions on the bottle of 3 in 1, and it doesn't state what chemicals are used in its makeup. Using a PH test kit, (freshwater & tablets)by Aquarium Pharmaceuticals. PH NOW IS 7.2.
Using Dry-tab Ammoniak NH3/NH4 Test kit. AMMONIA is .25 PPM. Doing 2 Gallon water changes in 10 Gal tank every 2 days & I suspect that is helping to keep Ammonia from rising too high. Because the Plecos feed at nite, I have not been able to see what they are eating. I've been getting up most every nite at 2 AM and observe them hanging onto the sides of tank glass and moving around. I pulled out the squash & will feed that later. Hopefully, they will start feeding on the Hikari pleco wafers. I continue to feed (alternate) the frozen blood worms & frozen brine shrimp. I've hesitated to move the 3 med/lg angelfish into the 40 gal tank for fear they will eat the smallest BN fry. Just as soon as I can adjust the water PH & hardness and temp. in the 40 Gal to the 10 Gal, I will switch all fish in each tank. My ultimate goal is a PH of 7.0, water temp 82-83 and what would you recommend on the hardness? Do you agree with the future Ph of 7.0 also? I live in Visalia, California, (south of Fresno) USA, local water is 7.6 PH. I also use AMQUEL PLUS/ removes Nitrate, Nitrite & ammonia, and chloramines when I add new water. Not using any peat & my cannister filter has charcoal & zeolite w sleeve & ceramics.

[racoll]

What I would do in this situation is stop using the Wardley conditioner.

I would purchase a different brand that doesn't change the pH.


The pH of your tapwater is fine to keep Baryancistrus. Loads of members of the forum keep them at this pH.

If you really want a softwater tank, the only way to achieve this is by buying an RO or DI unit.

Any other method is just not going to achieve reliable results, and as you have found out, may harm your fish with pH swings.


At this stage I would continue with the water changes, but use just plain tapwater.

The ammonia level is a bit worrying. I assume that the tank is cycled?

Perhaps cut back on the feeding?


Best of luck

[MatsP]

What I would do in this situation is stop using the Wardley conditioner.

I would purchase a different brand that doesn't change the pH.


The pH of your tapwater is fine to keep Baryancistrus. Loads of members of the forum keep them at this pH.

If you really want a softwater tank, the only way to achieve this is by buying an RO or DI unit.

Any other method is just not going to achieve reliable results, and as you have found out, may harm your fish with pH swings.


At this stage I would continue with the water changes, but use just plain tapwater.

The ammonia level is a bit worrying. I assume that the tank is cycled?

Perhaps cut back on the feeding?

I'd ignore the "perhaps" in the above sentence.

Best of luck

To me, it seems like plecos aren't particularly bothered about pH - my test kit showed above 8 in my previous house, but according to the local water report, my current water is around 7.2 (I haven't bothered to measure it). Your local water is 7.6, which is fine.

Now it so happens that hardness is somewhat related to pH, but only loosely (generally, high hardness = high pH, low hardness = low pH, although it's not ALWAYS so, as it depends on exactly what minerals are in the water). I would think that your water is on the hard side - I think this holds for most of California, in fact.

In nature, plecos live in soft water with low pH (some as low as pH 4, which is about as sour as lemon juice or vinegar and 1000 times more sour than the neutral pH 7.0).

It is considered by most of the people I trust on this site that conductivity is the best measure of how good the water is for the fish - this is the waters ability to conduct electricity [measured in micro-Siemens per cm or us/cm], which also tells how much minerals there is in the water (not just the ones that make up "hardness", as hardness really only count some of the mineral content in the water). The less minerals, the lower the conductivity. You can use conductivity to convert to hardness by the rough scale that 2 us/cm is 1 ppm of hardness (although that's just a rough, and it's based on a "standard" mix of minerals, which isn't necessarily what any particular water has).

So, if you use conductivity, you'll want to aim for something in the range around 100 us/cm for ideal conditions for plecos. This is "breading season" water, and if your plan is to breed these fish, then you'll probably want to keep them in noticably harder water when you aren't trying to convince them to spawn, as the transition from hard (high conductivity) to soft (low conductivity) will be the trigger the fish needs to make them spawn.

Also note that harder water is more pH stable, as the water will have more buffering capacity (KH). If you use purified water (RO/DI) to make the water soft, make sure you still have at least 2 degrees KH (that's around 40 ppm if I remember rigth), so carbonates (such as Sodium Bicarbonate [bicarbonate of soda]) should make up most of the hardness in this condition.

Note that in a hard water, you'll literally need tons of peat to make any pH difference, because the hard water will have sufficient buffering capacity to counter any acid in the peat.

So, as a summary, for basic keeping of Loricariidae (plecos), plain tap-water is just fine. If you want them to spawn (other than the trivial spawning ones such as

Ancistrus sp(3)

), you'll want soft water triggering.

And yes, angels will eat BN fry if the fry isn't big enough (around 3/4" would be big enough).

--
Mats

[Riftrod]

Tks Racoll , mats P and Dead Serious for your replys & valuable info. Following every suggestion and its working; no more dead gold nuggets and 3 have survived.

No, the 10 Gal tank is not cycled. I destroyed the good bacteria (nitrosomonas) by a)completely cleaning out my Fluval 303 cannister filter b) by syphoning out approx 80% of my sand substrate at same time, with the 20% water change. No wonder the ammonia spiked to .025 and I lost (1) of the L018's. Will continue to do daily small water changes, to bring down the ammonia level while bidding time for the Fluval to get established.

Doing daily 20% water changes and cutting down on the amount of food, especially the Hikari wafers. I suspect these are recently wild-caught and the wholesaler in San Francisco probably did not hold them long in his tanks, before I ordered them from LFS. Poor buggers most likely have never seen a Hikari pleco wafer. Continuing to feed froz. blood worms & froz. brine shrimp and reducing on frequency of wafers.

The largest L-18 is now grazing on slice of Yam. I don't use R/o or Di water. Will continue to use tap water (7.6) but don't know DK yet until I buy test kits also for Nitrite. Stopped using Wardley 7.0 Conditioner. Water temp is now up to 81.4F (27.4 C) and will slowly continue to raise it to 83 F.

Will take and post pics later, first must finish equalizing the 40 gal tank to the 10 gal and let the 10 gal finish cycling out. Patience here is the key....even though I am dying to transfer my plecos and angelfish into the 40. Will first remove all 50 BN Ancistrus fry from 40 Gal tank.

Riftrod (Gary)

[Riftrod]

Purchased test kits & heres latest results of testing the 10 Gallon tank:

Clorine: zero (safe)
PH: 7.0
Ammonia: .05 PPM (still little high)
Alkalinity: 120 (ideal)
Hardness: zero (very soft)
Nitrite: 3.0 (Stress)
Nitrate: 40 (safe)

[MatsP]

Nitrite levels indicate that your filter is maturing (cycling in progress). If you can squeeze some filter media from the 40g tank into your 10g tank, that can then be sucked up into the filter, that would help.

--
Mats

[racoll]

Sounds like you are doing everything right Riftrod.

A reading of zero GH (hardness) and 120 KH (alkalinity) seems, while not impossible, rather odd.

Would you be able to post results of testing your tapwater to see if it a tank issue?

[Riftrod]

Tap water: Ammonia: .15 PH 7.8
Nitrite: 0 Nitrate: 20 Hardness: 7.5
Clorine: .2 Alkalinity: 100

[MatsP]

I got your PM, and I'd say that it's not a good idea in general to break down and clean filters other than using old tank-water. Doing a "good clean" of the filter is causing the whole cycling thing to start over again, which is not a good thing!

If your tapwater is hardness 7.5, then I don't believe that your tank water should be (noticably) different hardness (unless you're RO/DI filtering, which you've already said you're not). Either your hardness test is not working right for you, or there's something "upsetting" the hardness test in the tank (such as additives). It may be worth checking if adding one of your additives (try one at a time) to see if any of them change the hardness reading.

Your tap-water seems pretty good though, but you do need to use a Chloramine water condtioner.

--
Mats

[Riftrod]

I suspect the culprit (in screwing up some of my water readings) is the 'wardley 3 in 1 (7.0) water conditioner, that I used in this 10 gal tank approx 8 days ago. It claims that it 1) buffers PH to 7.0,
2)ammonia neutralizer, eliminates clorine and cloramines. I have completely stopped using it and am slowly allowing the PH and hardness to climb with small water changes.

When I completely broke down my cannister filter (Fluval 303) and throughly cleaned it, even though I was careful with the (2) round sponge filters in the Fluval, & only rinsed them in the same old filter water, I must have destroyed too much of the good bacteria, as I changed out all of the old carbon & zeolite.

The use of the Wardley water conditioner dropped the PH, then when cleaning the Filter the PH spiked up and shortly after that is when I lost one of my L'18's. Compounding this, that same L'18 was starving itself ever since I introduced it into my tank, as its belly was sucken.

I do use 'AMQUEL PLUS' for removal of clorine & ammonia. Brousing through your posted pics, I was admiring your Gold Nugget Pleco. Mine, I think, are L-18 as they have small yellow spots. Will post pic later after the tank is stabilized for accurate I.D. into this Website.

[Riftrod]

Here's an update - Out of (4) purchased, (2) have survived with the advice I rec'd. I'm willing to accept this 50% survival rate, as I was new to keeping L-018's.

They are feeding well on frozen red worms and frozen brine and they have accepted the Hikari pleco algae wafers. I alternate each of these foods each nite at feeding time.

Stabilized the water temp. at 83 F and no longer trying to lower the PH - I am using tap water that is 7.6 PH and they are thriving.

Largest Cat immediately staked out a huge artificial stump with enormous caves inside it for himself. It will not let the smaller Cat near his territory, but at least they are not fighting each other.

Tks again for the help.

[racoll]

Great news Riftrod.

It's really nice when the advice you give makes a difference.


No that they are feeding and have settled down, it is good idea to get them on to a more vegetarian diet.

Keep feeding the brineshrimp, bloodworms and wafers, but reduce the quantity slightly and add some veg every day.

I swear by tinned fava beans, but zucchini is very popular as well as sweet potato.

It may take several weeks to get them on to it, but keep persevering.

Have a read of Mats article on feeding here.

[Riftrod]

Just wanted to let RAC0LL know that (2) L-18's are still alive and doing well (since Feb 2007), in my 40 gal tank. They feed on frozen brine, frozen red blood worms and use Hikari algae wafers in between, along with Shrimp pellets by OSI. They stay separated with one residing in a huge artificial stump w caves.

[racoll]

Great news. I'm glad to be of assistance.

Sounds like they are in much better health now, but I would give them more vegetables in their diet, as they are a vegetarian loricariid. Meaty food is okay, but always with vegetables.

Algae wafers don't count as they are mostly protein. In fact I am pretty sure they have a higher protien content (about 40%) than food such as bloodworm.

I use canned fava/broad beans a lot, as you can just freeze a bag of them and drop a couple in the tank every night. Very convenient.

[Riftrod]

I use canned fava/broad beans a lot, as you can just freeze a bag of them and drop a couple in the tank every night. Very convenient.

Tks for reply Racoll. The fava bean seems to be the same as we call a 'string bean'. When feeding them, do you first pull the beans out of the pod and only feed the beans, or feed the pod with the beans to the L018's?

I would assume it is best to use the canned version, as those fava beans are already pre-cooked and softer, rather than the uncooked favas.

Will get them back on vege's starting today. I notice my gold nuggets don't eat my live plants but they do like to uproot them while searching for food.

[MatsP]

Fava beans (or broad beans as they are called in the UK) are much larger than string beans. Each bean is about half an inch wide, three quarters long and a quarter "thick". If that doesn't match the Fava beans you have, then you are not getting the right thing [or me and Racoll have the US names of beans mixed up - and that seems unlikely, as here's a description: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vicia_faba ]

--
Mats

[Riftrod]

Tks Mats for reply. I've been unable to find the Fava Beans in local grocery stores here in California. Will try Lima beans (cooked) and sumplement with blanched yams and cucumber.