Dead Golden Nugget Pleco

[Josiemetzner]

Hello everyone, wish I was coming back on with better news but woke up this morning to a fatality. I found my Pleco in quite a state. Any ideas on identifying the problem would be great. Cannot give parameters today as have to but new ones, but will give tomorrow. Btw he was Perfectly fine, normal healthy happy suckering everywhere last night at feeding time.

[tagamasid1023]

Sorry for your loss. Sudden deaths of Golden Nuggets are not rare. They are pretty difficult to keep. Pinpointing the exact cause of death is impossible based on photo/s. So far, I am unaware of any scientific study that addresses this problem. Perhaps the experts could share a better perspective.

[2wheelsx2]

Unfortunately, I agree with the previous poster. I've never been able to keep a juvie to adulthood. I've tried numerous times and they either eventually stop eating or they die after months of happy lives. I've never been able to figure out why any of mine died, and I've had 5 or 6 of them.

[Josiemetzner]

I'm so sorry to hear that 2wheels, I'd had 'spots' for ova two years and had not had any issues with him. I was worried about the discolouration on him when found. Worried that it could of been a fungal disease which might spread though the tank.

[Richard B]

Some of the key things are high temperatures, high oxygenation, lack of competition for food & territory & getting good quality stock to begin with. Even all this doesn't guarantee success

[Narwhal72]

That's too bad.

One of the reasons I have heard for the difficulty of keeping gold nuggets is the use of antibiotics during importation. This will wipe out the gut flora of bacteria in the fish and although they continue to eat, they are not able to digest their food and die of slow starvation. The suggestion to prevent this is to add new imports into a tank with gold nuggets that have been thriving in captivity so that the gut flora can pass from the old nuggets to the new.

Don't know if this theory holds any water but it seems plausible.

In any case, I seem to be lucky with my group of 5. Been going on a year and a half and no fatalities and they all look good. Of course I probably just jinxed myself.

Andy

[Bamboo]

I was thinking last night , has anyone ever raised 2-3 inch animals to adult hood in their tanks? I've never heard of such. Is this probably one of the most problematic plecos ? or are there other sensitive species ?

[Narwhal72]

There actually is a spawning report thread on them here on Planetcatfish. So it has been done.

National Aquarium in Baltimore has a couple of 18" specimens in their Rainforest display but I suspect they were probably pretty large when they acquired them.

Andy

[Barbie]

I have two that I shipped to Spokane in 2003 when I moved. They were under 2" TL and are now about 6" TL. I always intended to get more and add to make a group, but just never got around to it. Since they are rumored to be difficult to spawn, so I put it off. They do appear to probably be a pair, but currently live with Leporacanthicus that definitely have no problem keeping them out of caves ;). I have kept them with Tanganyikan cichlids at times, but always over 80 degrees, always with plenty of hiding spots, and making sure they get enough to eat. IMO, they are happiest over 84 degrees with only smaller plecos to bully around.

Barbie

[eros168]

Sorry for your lost, I also have tried keeping these guys but after few attempts, results in death.

[pez gato]

Hi all,

I just wanted to say that I have read many people say that gold nuggets are very difficult to keep and thought I would share my experiences. I kept 3 of these fishes for three years in a 200 l tank and they were fine and healthy until unfortunately they died due to a filter and air pump stopping overnight. I made 50% water changes every week always using tap water and hardly ever testing water parameters. The temperature was 28 C.
As such, you can hardly say the water was of any exceptional quality and the temperature range for these fishes is widely known therefore I suspect the reason keepers fail with this fish is the food. I experimented with a range of fresh vegetables and all makes of pleco food but the only thing they ever ate was Hikari pleco wafers and New Era pleco pellets given by night just before switching all lights off. Anything else I tried would still be there by the next morning, only the two foods above would always disappear so eventually I stopped trying to give them anything else. I did catch them occasionally eating standard fish flakes leftovers and they may have eaten some of the frozen food I gave to the other fish in the tank but this is unconfirmed.
So, in my experience they are fussy eaters but they key is to find out what they like and stick to that. I hope someone finds this information helpful.

[Allendeath]

Hi, I have had one if these for over four years now. It is about 8cm long and has grown a bit since I first had him (?). Mostly I feed him cucumber and plec wafers, like others I have found that is what he likes and other food is offered but not eaten. He lives under the bogwood in my tank and is most active at night, although as he has grown he is a bit more active during the day. I have him as the only bottom dweller in my tank (160l cube) with 8 snakeskin barbs, 3 shrimp and 5 harlequin rasbora. I do a 30 litre water change every week but hardly ever check the parameters. Also my local water is less than ideal, it's a hard water area with a ph of 8. I think I have been very lucky. I do keep it warm in my tank, about 28 usually.