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L134
Posted: 06 Jan 2007, 15:14
by ljse
I found the pleco dead today. The wierd thing is that its dorsal fin was torn in the middle. There are no other fish in the tank with him so what could have happened? The powerhead intake is blocked by a sponge. The ammonia is .25, would that have killed him? Nitrite:0 Nitrate: 10
Posted: 11 Jan 2007, 13:14
by MatsP
Post mortem analyzis is often difficult.
Torn dorsal fin is probably a case of getting caught in something, and very unlikely to do serious damage to the fish (in the wild, many fish have torn fins, and they are living quite happily like that). What it got caught in would be hard to determine without knowing what your tank looks like.
Ammonia is defnitely a possibility, especially if there was some sort of sudden rise in ammonia, and the current level is lower than the peak level. 0.25 is definitely "above normal", as a well-working filter should keep ammonia at zero. Of course, there is also the possibility that the fish died from some other cause and the dead fish itself caused the ammonia to rise...
Sorry, but there's few things that are harder than to analyze the cause of death without some real clues...
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Mats