LDA025 looking ill, need advise please

[Arlington]

1. Water parameters
a) Temperature range. 72-78
b) pH. 8
c) GH. not sure
d) KH 11 degrees
e)Ammonia, Nitrate, Nitrite, levels. all at 0ppm
f) Water change frequency.. 25% weekly


2. Tank set up
a) Size. 100gal
b) Substrate. eco-complete 2-3 inches
c) Filtration. fluval 406
d) Furnishings. driftwood and plants, many hiding areas
e) Other tank mates.
5 common bristlenose
1 betta
1 checker barb
20 or so neon tetras
20 or so silver tip tetras
some shrimp
3 kuhli loaches
1 other pitbull pleco, lda025
7 mature cory's
f) How long has it been set-up? 4 months
g) When was the last new fish added? 3 weeks ago
h) Foods used and frequency? I have been feeding algae wafers and cucumbers, spinach, zucchini and some frozen blood worms. Flakes for the tetras and Barb.
3. Symptoms / Problem description
sunken stomach and is breathing very rapidly, fins are in rough shape

4. Action taken (if any) none yet

5. Medications used (if any) none yet
Any help would be most appreciated. Not sure if this matters, but I was told they are wild caught. Not sure if that is true.

[MatsP]

It looks severely starved. It may have internal parasites, so medicating with a generic anti-parasite medication (I use Kusuri Wormer+, which is based on flubendazole, but there are quite a few different products on the market - some people combine flubendazole, praziquantel and metrondiazole, which is the three most commonly used wormers).

--
Mats

[RickE]

If they are truly wild caught then as Mats says, internal parasites are quite likely. Do you see it feed?

[Richard B]

Its fins have been chewed to pieces! - was it purchased like that or is it being severely harrassed? There doesn't seem to be a known fin nipper in the tank unles you have a rogue barb?

Also a nitrate test at zero is highly unlikely - how was it measured - these fish IME are not happy with nitrate build up. Much less tolerant than for example a common BN.

That's a bit of a temperature fluctuation too...is the variation something you could control?

[Arlington]

Thank you all for the replies.

No I haven't seen it feed, well maybe a little on the glass, but it is always on the glass. Usually just sitting there. The other one is always eating.

He was purchased in that condition. The nitrate test was done with the drops from my master freshwater kit. It is a heavily planted tank and the plants use the nitrates up quickly. I didn't realize that was a large temperature fluctuation. I'll get anther heater in there to try and settle it down some. I have one cheapo heater 300w for the tank and some times it acts up.

[Arlington]

Well here is an update for those who maybe interested. I didn't treat for parasites as a few have suggested because I had no tank set up for use as a hospital, and lacked the equipment to do so. No heater or filter. The tank it is housed in contains shrimp and out of fear of killing them I opted not to treat until I could get a tank up. Well now I have a 10gal up but the lda025 is looking much better as far as body weight goes. The stomach area is no longer sunken and his breathing is at a normal rate compared to the other lda025. The fins are still rough but I imagine they will take some time to grow back. I may still treat just as a precaution. I'll try and post some newer pics later. My guess is it was just starved and harassed before being placed in my tank.