when to start panicking about L239

[inkyjenn]

i got an L239 last saturday and noticed about 48 hours later that he was COVERED in body flukes. he was in with my cherry shrimp in a ten gallon (not his permanent home), so i pulled him out of the ten and put him in an 18 gallon rubbermaid tub (weve used these before; no microban in them) with a power filter and a heater to treat for the flukes (the parasite clear is not invert safe). i used two doses of the jungle labs parasite clear 48 hours apart. the flukes are definately gone and ive transfered him back to the 10. the big concern is that hes barely eaten in the last week and his belly is definately sunken in. not to the uber sunken, his eyes arent too terrible yet, but not as bulgy as they should be.

from what ive read, these guys are pretty shy and hard to acclimate. im just concerned that if he doesnt start eating soon, he wont. the 10 gallon is pretty heavily planted. the pH i know is higher than the L239s are reported liking (7.6), but i cant add him to my 55 (the pH in there is 6) yet. i have my gibby in there and hes much bigger.

ive tried tempting him with peeled peas, zucchini, sinking cory wafers, sinking algae wafers, sinking shrimp pellets, thawed krill, and thawed bloodworms. theres driftwood and plenty of micro stuff in the 10 (the shrimp eat it like crazy). parameters are 0 ppm ammonia and nitrite and 15 ppm of nitrate. should i start thinking about garlicking up his food to try to entice his appetite? or should i let him be for a little while longer. before sticking him in qt to treat for worms he was starting to munch on the glass and gravel as well as eating a little of the cory wafer.

[Loracidlover]

Hello, sad to hear of the trouble with your L239. A while back I recieved a couple of very battered oligancistrus, which refused to eat anything for about 3 weeks, to the point where their bellies where so hollow you could almost see the spine. I tried everything with them, many veggies, variteties of prepared food, live and frozen foods, shrimp etc. but they wouldn't eat anything. In a last ditch attempt I spent about a week growing some algae on pieces of slate in a tub outdoors in the sunshine, and then placed the algae covered slate in the tank. This caused a literally instant reaction, the two fish appeared and were grazing feverishly in under an hour, I went on replacing the slates before weaning the two fish on to shrimp and algae wafers.
Maybe this is worth a try if nothing else works, though maybe the standard procedure of garlic covered food should be tried first? Also darken the tank, remove any potential competitors and disturb them as little as possible. This may seem like somewhat strange advice, but it worked for me in similair circumstances.

Conrad.

[loachy_406]

Have you found...

...this method that works wonders for raising tough fry and acclimatizing picky loricariids

Grind your favourite fish food to bits. You can add any kind of fish food and even ground, dried vegetables.
Separate an egg white from the yolk.
Mix the egg white and fish food.
Paint the resulting mixture on a flat rock or driftwood.
Let it dry rock hard.
Place it in the tank.
The dry egg white will only dissolve very slowly in water. Your happy loricariids will eat away since this mimics their "natural" foods. Fry also benefit from the protein in the egg white.

From Shane's World.
It has been recommended by others on this forum for very similar cases.

[inkyjenn]

thank you both so much. i will try both. i can make up the egg mixture tonight and try it no later than tomorrow (so cal heat will cook this thing in no time) and i can definately try to grow some algae in a tub. i have lots of spare slate i can use. im hoping hell start to eat with either method. i think once i get him started, it wont be so hard to keep him going

[Barbie]

You don't mention how warm you're keeping him. He can handle warmer water and it will help stimulate both his immune system and his appetite. I would keep him at 82-83 degrees and see how he acts. Frozen daphnia is another favorite food for them, as is mysis shrimp. I always try to take a piece of wood from an established tank with healthy fish and add it to tanks with plecos that are struggling. I have no idea if the probiotic effect is really doing them any good by grazing up potentially beneficial bacteria from the healthy fish, but it surely can't hurt. I firmly believe that they have a real die off of those bacteria with all of the shipping trauma and I've seen it work wonders, especially on fish that have been medicated. Definitely also watch him for signs of secondary bacterial infections that could result from having the open wounds all over his body like that.

Barbie

[inkyjenn]

hes been in around 80°F water. i will try bumping up the temperature for him too

[inkyjenn]

THANK YOU GUYS SO MUCH!

hehehehehe

i made the egg white/fish food mixture. i really coated the rock. its cloudy in the tank, but i can fix that. i put a lot of food on there: algae wafer, cory wafer, shrimp pellet and a little cichlid pellet (a lot of protein in those things). but it is BARE this morning and mr vincent (as in van gogh, not price) the L-239 is on top of the rock looking A LOT happier

i think i will make up a couple more, though maybe not coating the rock so heavily (i dont want to pollute the tank). then once, hes eating regularly, i will start maybe placing the food just on the rock. then remove the rock

[nvcichlids]

Its good to hear your L239 is doing good!

I just had a question about the eggwhite/food on a rock. How do you let it harden? Do you bake it, let it sit in room temperature, let it sit outside, how does it work?

Like I said, it is good to hear you were able to save him!

-NV

[inkyjenn]

i just painted it on the rock and let it sit out in my laundry room (it sits in the sun but is enclosed and keeps the bugs away). i live in southern california, so it gets nuclear in there. it also dries pretty quickly if you set a fan in front of it.

HE POOPED! its the first time ive seen him do that since i got him. its a little stringy, but im actually attributing this to the fact that he hadnt eaten in a week. his belly isnt hollow anymore though hes still not as robust as i would like. hes being more active now, kind of restlessly roaming the tank. but hes doing it during the day as well as at night. i think hell be a lot happier once hes in the 55. pH is lower (yes i will drip acclimate him) and there will be a lot more space for him to hide if he wants to. i will have to make sure i feed him directly since my congo tetras are pigs and hes quite timid still

[inkyjenn]

o and since no one has seen him:

[Loracidlover]

Thats really good news, sounds like the egg white paint thing is really worth trying! He's a nice looking chappie too, good bulgy clear eyes, those tatty fins will heal up in no time too.

[inkyjenn]

he seems to really like to feed this way. i fed him last night and he was on it within an hour of the stone going into the tank.

im not too worried about his fins. my gibby had a HUGE tear in his tail when i bought him. 2 years later and you'd never know the difference.

[nvcichlids]

That fish is extremely beautiful! You are extremely lucky! (they go for $60 for a 2" fish around here)

-NV

[inkyjenn]

eesh!

hes eating ok. however, i noticed that hes got the body flukes again. at this point, im inclined to let him get fattened up a bit before i stress him out any more. ill be picking up prazipro which should solve the problem. anyone had any luck soaking food in it? i figure it wouldnt hurt to get some of the meds in him as well as on him

[inkyjenn]

hes actually eating really well now. hes on food within minutes. and hes even devouring a broccoli stem. eyes are definately bulgy now.

now to get rid of the flukes. i found out prazipro is gentle enough to use with shrimp and snails. so i wont have to stress him out further by moving him to a quarantine tank again

[inkyjenn]

it took 3 rounds of prazipro to clear all the darned flukes off. what a pain.

however, hes really relaxed now. will even let me watch him feed with the lights on. it takes him no time at all to eat his food and hell even forage.

[inkyjenn]

and heres a few photos:

[shobay]

I had a 239 died that way~ Iam glad yours recoverd

[inkyjenn]

he was pretty skinny for a while. eyes were moderately sunken in and he had a hollow belly. but now, hes much perkier and and is definately fatter. the flukes are gone which is great. it was kinda touch and go for a while, but hes doing so much better now

[Richard B]

Good to see a recovery here - 239's are good lookin' suckers!

[1walter9]

Is this male or female guys?

o and since no one has seen him:

[MatsP]

I would say female, but it's much easier to say if you look from above - and either way, the fish shows sexual difference much more clearly if they are in good condition, which means that looking at other fish to compare with your own is not necessarily going to be that good a key.

--
Mats

[inkyjenn]

that one is definately a male. he now has HUGE bristles on his gills and his pectoral fins look like they could be medieval weapons! hes also not very round when viewed from overhead.

i have a second one now that may be a female (we'll see in 6 months). much rounder and a lot less bristly.

[Farid]

hi there,
your 239...looks healthy and well fed. but i dont see any wood in the tank. wood helps also digesting and the acid different wood's have also help to keep the stomach healthy.

make sure he has it's place to hide so less stress is garantied and he will come out straight for eating...

feed him specially in the dark as soon the light goes of and the room is not busy...this is the best time for catfishes as they really come out without beeing unsure to do so

farid

[andywoolloo]

Vincent!! Any new pics inkyjenn?

[inkyjenn]

nothing recently. my tank has become a JUNGLE and i dont want to take photos of him while the injury to his nose is still healing (i feel vain for him). i should try to get some good shots of his cheek odonts though. they are getting really long

[andywoolloo]

what happenned to his nose? did I miss something?

[inkyjenn]

he got some sort of injury. its healing, but very slowly. its been about a month. it didnt start healing until i used neosporin. but hes perky, eating and fiesty. he and the new blue squabble a little, but im not seeing overt signs of aggression between them. until the other blue grows up a bit, i wont be able to tell for sure if it is really a female or not.

[andywoolloo]

good luck to Vincent on his nose and his possible mate.

[inkyjenn]

heres vincent. yesterday morning i woke up and he was sitting on the spray bar in my tank.





you can still see the wound on his nose, but it is miniscule compared to what it was. it seems to be continuing to heal cleanly, though slowly.