Help Royal has sunken belly/eyes

[T]

Ok I have had my royal for a couple of years now and hes always been a good eater and active.However over the las week or so he has been acting strangely(hanging on the back glass a lot).He was still happy to munch on cucumber and wood so I wasnt really that worried.But last night I got the chance to get a good look at him and to my horror his belly is quite hollow and his eyes are a bit sunken.Thing is hes still eating so im quite confuzzled.

ph - 6.6
ammo - nil
nitrite - nil
nitrate - not sure cant find my test but I do 40% weekly waterchnages so they are never very high.

I have done 2 things lately that could have something to do with it.

1. I switched over from gravel to pool filter sand.
2. I treated for swim bladder disease as one of my cichlids seems to be haing strangley in the water.

Currently hes in a 80gal with mixed cichlids/pl*cos and clown loaches.I do have a less hectic tank(40gal planted with rams/tetras etc).Would it be better to move him in there for the time being or would this stress him even more?

Thanks!!

[StiffMeister]

get rid of any medic leftovers in your tank. Plecs dont praticularly like meds. and do get a good nitrate test to see what the levels are.

[T]

I have never had a problem treating tank with pl*cos in them and I have quite a few reasonably sensitive species.Saying that I have never used this swim bladder stuff so it could easily have been it.The other pl*cos in the tank(vampire,cactus,leopard) dont seem affected thankfully.

I have actually moved him to the planted tank as its med free and much easier to keep tabs on him.

Would garlic possibly help stimulate its appitite?

[MatsP]

Garlic has been known to stimulat the appetite, so it's certainly worth a try. Also raising the temperature to the around 28'C would probably help [just make sure you have plenty of oxygen flowing in the tank too, and turn off the CO2!].

--
Mats

[Jools]

What meds did you use? There's a theory (I've not had the problem) that some can knock out the digestive bacteria that Panaque species have to help them break down fibrous foods.

Not sure what the cure would be other than lots of cucumber, algae or perhaps a little protein food just to keep the "fires burning".

Jools

[H.N]

You can use activated carbon to the tank that your royal in.
They get super sensitive to water chemistry when they are
not good. If you moved fish to other tanks, be careful with
the respiration rate (gill panting rate). Heavily stressed
fish pants very fast. To reduce stress level, add
0.05percent concentration of salt to the tank (maybe
critical to your plants).
Remember, if you move fish around, you certainly put some
stress on your fish every time you did.
...and please throw away all wood pieces in your pleco tank
that was once exposed to chemicals.

I recommend to feed Spirulina tablet for short or freshly
harvested wood pieces from a forested floor. This time of
year is still good to harvest them due to less insects or
macro organisms on wood. I usually put them into tanks
without washing or any treatment. Chose half/partially decayed woods in a healthy forests.
If good amount of feces from a healthy royal pleco were not available,
this method is one of the easiest way to bring a
good microbes to your sick royal. Use of spirulina is just
supplying a good source of nutrients fish need (takes a lot
of time to cure the micro flora in GI tract in this way).
Poplar, chestnuts, maple, oak...etc are good. Softer is better though.
If you followed some of the things I mentioned above and
fish not recovered in three days, let me know.
Good luck,

H.N / panaqs

[T]

He didnt make it and both tanks seem to have fungus and ich so that might have been what killed him or just finished him off.I'm so gutted cos I have had him 3 years or more

[Waldo]

Thats a sucky I'm sorry to hear that.

Get on helping your other fish.
Rock salt, raise the temp, and stop medicating your tank.