Weird L14 behavior

Lloydy · Post by **Lloydy** » 17 May 2012, 20:01

Hi all,

One of my L14's has been acting strangely this week and I was wondering just how strange/normal the behaviour is. *I will try to record some video next time it does this*

Basically over the past few days it has been out (with the lights on full) swimming in small ovals against the glass on 1 side of the tank. I even counted it doing 36 and 43 'circuits' respectively when I noticed it doing this earlier, after its 'exercise' it just sits breathing heavily before retreating to a cave. $:-\$

There isn't any special flow / shade on that side of the tank, the only special thing is that several guppies have given birth this week at that end of the tank. Could this be related (does my Plec fancy baby guppies for dinner?) or is this probably a coincidence and in fact my plec is just being silly?

wrasse · Post by **wrasse** » 17 May 2012, 20:18

How many L14 do you have? How big?
You are right... this is 'weird' behaviour.
I would do a large water change - at least 50% and aerate the tank strongly. In fact a strong current and aeration is probably all that's needed... assuming no disease is involved.

Lloydy · Post by **Lloydy** » 17 May 2012, 20:29

Thanks for the quick reply Wrasse,

There are 4x L14 in a 400l tank. They range from about 5-6.5" (total length) although i've not tried to measure them for a while.

No sign of disease but i'll do a water change tomorrow morning and lower the temp by 0.5-1c in case its a water quality and/or Oxygen issue

Lloydy · Post by **Lloydy** » 23 May 2012, 17:08

Well I have done 2 big water changes and reduced the temp to about 26.5C (from 27.5C) but he/she is still doing its 'Exercise' although slightly less often than last week.

I'm just going to be happy that it comes out with the lights on because now I get to see its beautiful colours and watch it feed

Flyfisher · Post by **Flyfisher** » 23 May 2012, 21:17

I kept a pair of Geophagus Tapajos redheads that did that for a while. I thought they were going nuts until I started noticing whitespot on the tetras. Then I looked closely and they both had it. A couple of days tank treatment and they were acting normal again.
Im not sure about plecs and whitespot but id give it a try if I were you .

Gavin

Lloydy · Post by **Lloydy** » 31 May 2012, 15:31

Well another Guppy dropped 15-20 babies overnight and now my Plec is acting a bit weird again.

I've uploaded a video (sorry about crap quality, I used a cameraphone) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kh93W - Behaviour starts at about 1m20s and goes on until the end. He was actually doing this for nearly 5mins before I disturbed him, then I started filming and he started up again and went on doing this for another few minutes after I stopped recording.

DutchFry · Post by **DutchFry** » 31 May 2012, 17:58

firstly your link to youtube is not working for me. but it sounds like weird stuff indeed.

your suggestion of a relation between the guppy's breeding and the L014 behaviour got me thinking of a study on Koi where they found that the presence of certain pheromones in the water led to a decrease in growth and resilience in the Koi present. the guppy's pheromones could perhaps have the same results on your catfish?

however i do think this might be a bit far fetched and probably an addition of a decent aeration system will solve the 'problem'

Lloydy · Post by **Lloydy** » 31 May 2012, 23:55

Does this link work?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kh93W2y7xhg

Alternatively search for the video, which is called 'Strange Plec (L-14) behavior'

bigamefish · Post by **bigamefish** » 01 Jun 2012, 00:50

Wow beautful pleco! That behavior is wierd indeed. What size of tank is that? Its really nice!

wrasse · Post by **wrasse** » 01 Jun 2012, 07:53

Lloydy, your fish appears healthy and has no fight injuries so that's good.

Is it just this fish that behaves this way or do the other L14 do it too?

Your other L14 are out of sight, presumably in their favourite hidey-holes?

Maybe this fish has no retreat it is comfortable with. If so, rearranging the tank decor might help, creating as many territories and choices as possible. Break line-of-sight.

If you can, add much stronger current. The internal on the LHS could/should have an air diffuser?

David R · Post by **David R** » 01 Jun 2012, 09:43

I've noticed some of my L14 doing something similar, they're about 5-8cm and I have 8 in a 400L tank. Some will spend time swimming actively into the current from the return, and sometimes they will swim back and forth across the front of the tank. I'll try take a video of it to compare, maybe its just a L14 thing? I'm going to try adding a powerhead this weekend to create more flow to see if that changes their behaviour.

FrankNL · Post by **FrankNL** » 01 Jun 2012, 10:54

Looks to me like an active fish, nothing more.

Lloydy · Post by **Lloydy** » 01 Jun 2012, 12:23

Thanks for the feedback guys.

To answer your questions I have 4 x L14's in that tank (400l) and yes the others were hiding. They are roughly the same size but the 1 in the video is the biggest by about 0.5" TL.

Wrasse - this is the only 1 that I've noticed doing this as consistently as it does when the lights are on. The others tend to only come out during the day for food or to move to another cave/hiding place. The internal (Powerhead 402) might have once had a these parts but it was a freebie from someone that closed a tank down years ago, sadly not all the bits were there.

As for filters,powerheads and airstones, I have the following in the tank. Please note the l/p figures are the figures shown on product boxs / what manufactures say you get. Although I think we all know it's unusual to consistently get this level of performance ;)

Airstone = Tetratec APS 300 - perhaps a little underpowered for this tank but it does a job.

Filters = Powerhead 402 (1020l/h) + Fluval 405 external (1300l/h) + Eheim aquaball 130 (550l/h) + Juwel Jumbo internal (1200l/p) = 1020+1300+550+1200 = 4070l/p = *10 turnover.

I suppose I could fit a diffuser to the Aquaball but I already have both the Jumbo and 405 outlets pointing towards the surface to break it (current is strong at the top). Maybe I need to get more watermovement along the base of the tank? but with small grain sand in there, too much movement tends to make it pile up against bogwood or the sides of the tank...

The tank needs an overhaul but I've been very busy with exams & deadlines over the past few months for my MBA course, so I've just stuck to do regular waterchanges. Thankfully my last exam was yesterday

$\:d/$

, so I might spend some time/money redesigning the tank over the next few weeks and testing out different water currents options.

I think/hope this little fella is fit, healthy, happy and therefore just playing around / a bit bored. I will however see if the behavior changes after the revamp.

todd1978 · Post by **todd1978** » 28 Jun 2012, 21:51

Hi, I have an L14 that does the same thing, my partner thinks hes mental!
I bought mine at about 4cm and about 3 weeks later he just swam up and down the tank front going round the magnet in the top corner, since then i have observed him a little better and he seems to have a bit of a routine going on. He will act normal for days or even weeks just going about his business but always out when food is around and will devour anything i put in and ravishes blood worm and fattens up nicely, he will then go do his swimming thing and will sometimes go for upto 5hours which is just bizzar, he will also ignore food while he is doing this, but a day or 2 later will just go back to normal behaviour.
This is just what i have observed, he has doubled in size though in the 4 months iv'e had him, it just seems like he's swimming his food off which surely can't be right but thats what it looks like.

Craig

Syno Rey · Post by **Syno Rey** » 01 Jul 2012, 03:23

My L200 is doing the same exact thing you L014 is doing. He didn't even come out when the light where on. I added an HOB filter and added some tetras to the tank and now is doing the exact thing ! What could it be ?

racoll · Post by **racoll** » 01 Jul 2012, 05:43

In my experience this kind of behaviour is due to insufficient oxygen levels.

wabluska · Post by **wabluska** » 04 Jul 2012, 20:21

Make sure that the water is well oxygenated. I have learnt the hard way that L14S are very sensitive to the lack of oxygen.

Lloydy · Post by **Lloydy** » 05 Jul 2012, 02:17

I'm quite confident its not an Oxygen problem because the tank isn't too warm (~26.5c), there are 2 airstones in the tank, plus 3 large filters providing plenty of surface/water movement.

Any other ideas on how to get more oxygen into the tank? Lower temp further, add more airstones, anything else?

Taratron · Post by **Taratron** » 05 Jul 2012, 02:43

One or two powerheads added in, aimed at the surface at an angle?

racoll · Post by **racoll** » 05 Jul 2012, 04:17

Reducing the stocking level may help. The metabolism of all fish, plus all the microbial activity from decaying matter in the tank (fish faeces, uneaten food, bogwood etc) will all contribute to the BOD.

dw1305 · Post by **dw1305** » 05 Jul 2012, 15:13

Hi all,

In my experience this kind of behaviour is due to insufficient oxygen levels.

I think that is the reason as well. I would always be worried about any nocturnal fish that was out and about during the day. My suspicion would be that that the stress caused by sub-optimal, but sub-lethal, levels of dissolved oxygen are responsible for many unexplained fish deaths, and also as a contributory factor in death apparently by other causes like Bloat and White-spot. The problem with dissolved oxygen levels, compared to everything else, is that that you can get it right 99.9% of the time, but if it is wrong for the remaining 0.1% you will kill all your livestock.

I'm quite confident its not an Oxygen problem

You can't actually be sure, aeration and oxygenation are much more complex issues than most people realise, and again as Racoll posts

Reducing the stocking level may help. The metabolism of all fish, plus all the microbial activity from decaying matter in the tank (fish faeces, uneaten food, bogwood etc) will all contribute to the BOD

Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD) is the parameter we need to know, unfortunately we can't measure it, so we need to take steps to minimise it.

........Any other ideas on how to get more oxygen into the tank? Lower temp further, add more airstones, anything else?

Have a look at the last couple of "BOD" posts and links in this thread:
"Wood for Tanks" <http://www.planetcatfish.com/forum/view ... =4&t=35930>,
and in this article:
"Aeration and dissolved oxygen in the aquarium" (with apologies for the cross-post to "Plecoplanet" <http://plecoplanet.com/?page_id=829>),

I wrote "Aeration ......" specifically to try and quantify all the factors that effect oxygenation, because I couldn't find any article that covered all the necessary bits in one place, and I had come to realise that it was a major cause of unexplained fish death.

cheers Darrel

crkinney · Post by **crkinney** » 05 Jul 2012, 16:40

My adult ancistrust start doing the same thing .I slice a zuccinni down the middle and hang it in the tank and they stop.In a couple of week they will start again .may be she wants a change of diet.
mule

Lloydy · Post by **Lloydy** » 05 Jul 2012, 18:08

I come to this site for advice so it would be stupid of me to ignore everyones' comments

I've just done a 40% water change, hoovered out some leftover prawns from last nights feed, and mixed recently collected rain water with normal tap water to refill the tank (I've not splashed out on RO water yet)

During the water change I moved and cleaned some of the filter outputs, my powerhead and changed over a poorly performing airstone; the result of which is a greater amount of surface movement across the whole of the tank but visually less flow across the bottom. I have a quite powerful powerhead that I can position in a number of ways and either with or without sucking air into the output to blast bubbles throughout the tank.

Therefore my questions are... to increase Oxygen levels;

1. Should the powerhead be directed across the top of the surface to create a wave like affect or vertically up to create more of a water fountain look?

2. Should I add air/bubbles throughout the tank or is this merely an aesthetic choice and will this not affect the O2? (Edit - I think the link above suggested bubbles don't make much difference to O2 levels?)

I apprieciate some answers might be "it depends" but thank you in advance for you comments

Lloydy · Post by **Lloydy** » 05 Jul 2012, 18:55

And 1 final question.

I read somewhere that people put an airstone under the intake for their large filters because it's beneficial to get the air / O2 into big canister/external filters. Is there any truth in this?

Whenever I've accidently done this or after a big clean, I tend to find my Fluval 405 doesn't sound quite right until it's managed to push most of the bubbles out into the tank but I would be willing to put up with the extra noise if its beneficial for the bacteria in the filter and/or tank as a whole

racoll · Post by **racoll** » 06 Jul 2012, 00:53

Lloydy wrote: 1. Should the powerhead be directed across the top of the surface to create a wave like affect or vertically up to create more of a water fountain look?

Don't think is matters too much. Both will have the same effect of circulating water.

Lloydy wrote: 2. Should I add air/bubbles throughout the tank or is this merely an aesthetic choice and will this not affect the O2? (Edit - I think the link above suggested bubbles don't make much difference to O2 levels?)

The bubbles themselves won't oxygenate much, but the movement will help the circulation (constantly bringing oxygen poor water in contact with oxygen rich air). Importantly also, if your tank is "closed" and has a hood and condensation tray, pumping fresh air into the system will certainly help maintain optimum diffusion of gases.

Lloydy wrote:
I read somewhere that people put an airstone under the intake for their large filters because it's beneficial to get the air / O2 into big canister/external filters. Is there any truth in this?

That's a really dumb idea. The air will get trapped in the filter and it will stop working!

Lloydy · Post by **Lloydy** » 06 Jul 2012, 10:42

racoll wrote: That's a really dumb idea. The air will get trapped in the filter and it will stop working!

That's what I thought, it's easy to hear that the filter doesn't sound right when there's air trapped in it. Thanks for confirming my assumptions

dw1305 · Post by **dw1305** » 08 Jul 2012, 21:43

Hi all,

I read somewhere that people put an airstone under the intake for their large filters because it's beneficial to get the air / O2 into big canister/external filters. Is there any truth in this?........That's a really dumb idea. The air will get trapped in the filter and it will stop working!

A lot of people have pointed this out to me, but the recommendation to feed the bubbles into the filter, where the oxygen was required, and to increase their residence time (and gas diffusion) was based upon my lack of understanding of how people used their canister filters.

I wrongly assumed that every-one would have a pre-filter sponge on their filter intake, with the aim of keeping bulky organic debris (faeces etc) out of the filter. The advantage of a pre-filter sponge was that it provided an easily maintained mechanical filter, as well as a browsing surface for shrimps, fish fry etc. Another advantage was that it retained the fine air bubbles from the venturi outlet, helping to oxygenate the water entering the filter. Assuming you use, and maintain, a pre-filter that doesn't adversely affect flow speed it is a win, win, win situation.

This proved to be incorrect, with many people actually using their filter as a de facto syphon, with potentially disastrous results. Because I had come from a biological re-mediation of waste water, rather than aquarist, back-ground, it was only at this point that I began to fully understand some of the problems people were encountering.

There is a much fuller discussion of this in "L200 death, any ideas to cause?" <http://www.planetcatfish.com/forum/view ... =5&t=33940>.

cheers Darrel

racoll · Post by **racoll** » 09 Jul 2012, 09:58

dw1305 wrote: I wrongly assumed that every-one would have a pre-filter sponge on their filter intake, with the aim of keeping bulky organic debris (faeces etc) out of the filter ... Assuming you use, and maintain, a pre-filter that doesn't adversely affect flow speed it is a win, win, win situation.

It's a shame that filters don't come fitted with a foam pre-filter, and you have to fudge one yourself. You've convinced me though that I should fit some to my filters. If nothing else it will reduce cleaning of the canister.

dw1305 (other thread) wrote: Oxygen deficiency very frequently relates to biological filtration, the conversion of NH3 - NO2 - NO3 is an oxygen intensive process.

Indeed. This is what I was getting at when I talked about oxygen levels, stocking levels and amount of organic waste in the tank.

dw1305 · Post by **dw1305** » 10 Jul 2012, 11:58

Hi all,

It's a shame that filters don't come fitted with a foam pre-filter, and you have to fudge one yourself. You've convinced me though that I should fit some to my filters. If nothing else it will reduce cleaning of the canister.

They really offer great advantages, I clean the pre-filter every week, but often (even after 6 months) there is very little mulm in the filter body itself. If you don't want to DIY them, Eheim make one, "Eheim Prefilter 4004320", it is a bit clunky, but works well.

I like the drilled 30cm x 10cm x 10cm Koi sponge filters, they are cheap to buy and you can cut them into 4" cubes etc. I usually silicon the bottom cube to a plain white glazed 4" tile. These combine being a pre-filter with adding internal biological filtration, a bit like an HMF.

If you want to make your own customisable pre-filters from a PPI10 sponge sheet, they take minutes to sew up. Some details here: <http://www.planetcatfish.com/forum/view ... =4&t=31213>. Larry (Apistomaster) uses a similar sponge as a mechanical/biological filter in this post <http://www.planetcatfish.com/forum/view ... =4&t=31782>.

Oxygen deficiency very frequently relates to biological filtration, the conversion of NH3 - NO2 - NO3 is an oxygen intensive process......Indeed. This is what I was getting at when I talked about oxygen levels, stocking levels and amount of organic waste in the tank

This really is the crux of the matter, it is unfortunate that you can't just dip a meter in and get a BOD reading. I wrote a bit more about BOD and oxygenation here: <http://www.planetcatfish.com/forum/view ... =4&t=35930>, but I know from talking to people on other forums that reduction of BOD (or adding plants) isn't an approach that every-one feels they can use.

cheers Darrel

Lloydy · Post by **Lloydy** » 12 Jul 2012, 14:17

Just wanted to say thank you to all the people that have commented above. I'm sure once I sit down and review all the posts in detail over weekend I will find plenty of very useful information, which will soon have me playing around with the tank/filters once again

I can report that despite rearranging the tank and water flow, one of my L14's still likes to swim around in circles/ovals like he did in the earlier video. I'm therefore going to assume he/she is either a bit mad or is in training for some sort of endurance swim at the next fish olympics