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My L260's!
I am not sure if this is a bad thing or not, but some of my L260's are laying on the output of the HOB filter. Their heads just slightly out of the water, but right in the output stream.

Water is about 82, ph 6.4, ammonia - 0, nitrite - 0, nitrate was at 15 yesterday, did 50%+ wc tonight. I have been doing w/c's 2x a week with 100% RO. Tonight's w/c was 66% tap/33% RO.

I did find one that had passed tonight when I did my w/c, just happened sometime today. I am not sure what could be the matter. I have had them for about 3 weeks now. I did have an almond leaf in there to help with the PH, which I am not sure if that is the issue. It has only been in there for one week, and now my fish are doing this.

I am feeding frozen blood worms and spirilina brine shrimp. I have 6 now, how much should I be feeding them each day.

I really need to find out what is wrong, I can't lose these beautiful fish.

I just did another 50% w/c tonight. I have one of my L260's keep lunging out of the water along the glass. 2 other one's keep climbing up the outflow of the filter. They are acting like there is little O2 in the tank, but I have a brand new Whisper 20 running 24/7. I am really scared I am going to lose these guys, I have no idea what is wrong.

hi there,
i dont know how experienced you are with softwater...BUT
where ever they come from (what water) if you kept them in a KH4 or 5 lets say 6 and you make huge water change with pure OR water...this is a killer for every fish...in a few minutes every on is hanging on the surface trying to get air!! it is something that happenes in the chemistry of the water. and it blockes the ocygen consuption of the fish! a minimum change of 50% with normal water will be necesary to stop this miracle...

nitrat of 0 surprises me a bit...did you measure with sticks or drops???

the rest about feeding seems o.k. just gibe them a good mix of everything. high temp. and a peace of soft wood is necesary...to keep their digesting busy...high temp. means in a dry season simulation 30°C i drop the temp. every three weeks down to 26°C for a week (softwaterseason at low temp.)

is there enough oxygen?? a goot surface movment is nesesary...or a airstone (specially when the temp. is at the hign level!)

this is all i can say about fishes having problems to breath...

farid

I am suspicious there is 0 nitrate - is the test kit new or an old past it's best one?

Richard B wrote:I am suspicious there is 0 nitrate - is the test kit new or an old past it's best one?

But nitrate is listed as 15 ppm...

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Mats

ups i've overseen that too...
farid

MatsP wrote:

Richard B wrote:I am suspicious there is 0 nitrate - is the test kit new or an old past it's best one?

But nitrate is listed as 15 ppm...

--
Mats

Yes, my nitrite is 0, the nitrates are around 15 ppm.

I am seeing small trace of ammonia as well. I will due a w/c with tap and prime.

I did end up losing 2 more over the night.

I was thinking, they have been in 100% RO since I got them almost 4 weeks ago. All w/c's have been with RO, so I am not sure if the RO is the problem. I am not adding anything though to the water, should I be?

mlb7225 wrote:I was thinking, they have been in 100% RO since I got them almost 4 weeks ago. All w/c's have been with RO, so I am not sure if the RO is the problem. I am not adding anything though to the water, should I be?

You do need a bit of buffering capacity (aka KH / HCO3-) in the water - RO water will be VERY low in buffer capacity, so your pH may plummet, with bad effects on the fish.

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Mats

My ph was at 6.4, which is what I thought it should be at.

Mats, can you please recommend a proper buffer agent that I should use?

How do you measure pH? If it's with a stick or paper then I'd say that's the problem right there, those can't be trusted. At all.

Very low pH can register as high CO2 with the fish, meaning they'll act as if oxygen is low and they'll try desperately to get away.
100% RO is extremely sensitive and you're likely to get wild pH swings: as the water has zero buffer capacity a small amount of acid can drop the pH through the floor.

I'd recommend mixing the RO water with 1/3rd - 1/4th tapwater.

Another possibility is nitrite, but if your aquarium has been running for four weeks and you've not recently done something like, say, medicate or clean the filter, that seems unlikely.

Finally there might be chemical residues on those leaves. As the problem started when you added the leaves it is probably a good idea to remove them, just in case.

Meanwhile, stop feeding and do daily water changes until the problem seems to have subsided.

The leaves will also, in themselves lower the pH. I should have mentioned that before.

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Mats

All of my water tests are done with the API Master Test Kit.

What buffering agent should I be using to help stabilize the water?

mlb7225 wrote:All of my water tests are done with the API Master Test Kit.

Not familiar with that one. Does it measure pH via titration (dropping acid into a container with water until color change) or with pH paper/stick? If the latter, don't trust it. If the former, don't trust it blindly.*

What buffering agent should I be using to help stabilize the water?

The cheapest and easiest is tapwater.

* I should perhaps qualify that. It is in fact very difficult to accurately measure pH of very clean water. Even electronic pH-meters struggle when it comes to high-quality RO water.

Mike_Noren wrote:

mlb7225 wrote:All of my water tests are done with the API Master Test Kit.

Not familiar with that one. Does it measure pH via titration (dropping acid into a container with water until color change) or with pH paper/stick? If the latter, don't trust it. If the former, don't trust it blindly.

What buffering agent should I be using to help stabilize the water?

The cheapest and easiest is tapwater.

The API test kit uses drops.

The API test kit uses drops, but not in the way that Mike suggests. Titration, you drip in one drop at a time until something changes colour, and the amount of drops you added determines the pH. The API test kit uses some sort of pH sensitive colouring agent that will give a different colour for different pH values. So it will suffer from the same problem as a test-strip or pH meter.

Tap water should be OK to stabilize the pH. Or use one of the products on the market for the purpose of pH stabilizaton/RO fixing - Kent Marine RO Right is one such product that I know is available in the US. I'm not sure what others there are, I'm sure API does one.

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Mats

MatsP wrote:The API test kit uses drops, but not in the way that Mike suggests. Titration, you drip in one drop at a time until something changes colour, and the amount of drops you added determines the pH. The API test kit uses some sort of pH sensitive colouring agent that will give a different colour for different pH values. So it will suffer from the same problem as a test-strip or pH meter.

Tap water should be OK to stabilize the pH. Or use one of the products on the market for the purpose of pH stabilizaton/RO fixing - Kent Marine RO Right is one such product that I know is available in the US. I'm not sure what others there are, I'm sure API does one.

--
Mats

Okay, I heard from someone else about Kent R/O Right, so I will go with that.

I understand the Titration, that is how I measure the kh, by doing 1 drop at a time. I guess I will look into a better test kit then for my tank.

Okay, a final posting on this very, very sad day for me. This has turned out to be the hardest lesson learned...

From what I have learned today, this is what I feel happened, please correct me if you think differently.

My tank has been setup now for about 7 weeks or so. Cycle was complete, no ammonia, no nitrites, and low levels of nitrates. Things were going well, so it seemed. PH was in the low 7's until I added an Almond leaf last week, this brought the PH down to 6.4. I have always used 100% RO water in this tank, and never adding anything to the water, i.e. no buffers of any kind. With that said, what I am concluding took place is this, PH, due to 0kh, swung down low, killing off a lot of bacteria in my filter. This then caused the ammonia level in my tank to go up. This ammonia spike then caused the breathing problems for my sorely missed Queens, evident by their attempts to get to the surface for O2. I have plenty of dissolved O2 in my tank, so I knew that wasn't the problem. In examining one of the deceased, I noticed there was a small amount of blood in the gill area, a sure sign of ammonia poisoning. Through a good friend, I now have Kent RO Right. I will continue using the RO water in my tank, but now I will be adding the buffering agent and will step up my monitoring of the water conditions. I feel very guilty for my lack of knowledge when it came to buffering the RO water. As it stands now, I lost 5 of the 7 L260's.

Very tough lesson learned!!!

Thank you to the people that took the time to respond, your comments helped me figure this out.

mlb7225 wrote:Okay, a final posting on this very, very sad day for me. This has turned out to be the hardest lesson learned...

From what I have learned today, this is what I feel happened, please correct me if you think differently.

Sorry, going to have to disagree. At pH's so low as what you were probably seeing the nitrogenous waste from the fish and decomposing bacteria will be almost completely in the form of ammonium, not ammonia. Ammonium is only slightly toxic, and unlikely to kill fish.

My guess is that your pH dropped down to, oh, 3-4 or so, and that the cause of death was acidosis.

hi there,
the buffering or the RO water is simply some liters of tapwater...that's it...a little bit of KH stops the pH to drop!
(did i missed something )

are you using CO 2 in the tank

farid

Mike_Noren wrote:

mlb7225 wrote:Okay, a final posting on this very, very sad day for me. This has turned out to be the hardest lesson learned...

From what I have learned today, this is what I feel happened, please correct me if you think differently.

Sorry, going to have to disagree. At pH's so low as what you were probably seeing the nitrogenous waste from the fish and decomposing bacteria will be almost completely in the form of ammonium, not ammonia. Ammonium is only slightly toxic, and unlikely to kill fish.

My guess is that your pH dropped down to, oh, 3-4 or so, and that the cause of death was acidosis.

I have CRS in this tank and 1 guppy. Nothing happened to them. Only my Queens. And supposedly CRS's are very picky shrimp. I tested my ph yesterday and it was 6.8 +/-.

Farid wrote:hi there,
the buffering or the RO water is simply some liters of tapwater...that's it...a little bit of KH stops the pH to drop!
(did i missed something )

are you using CO 2 in the tank

farid

No, I do not put CO2 into this tank.

Your fish could only have lived in pure RO so long if there was a source of minerals being dissolved from the substrate.
Such a source is unpredictable and you make have used up whatever buffering contribution the rocks or substrate were contributing.
It is dangerous to not have sufficient buffering in the RO to stabilize the tendency of the pH to drop whether the source is CO2 from respiration, decomposition, or fish metabolic wastes.

If you use stored RO water that is not being aerated or circulated to keep the dissolved O2(DO) levels adequately high then a large % water change could produce an abrupt drop in the DO levels.

I don't use CO2 since I use only a few low light plants, plants being completely optional in a L260 tank but I do like to have some moss or natantly growing plants with maybe even a potted Amazon Sword Plant. Some growing plants seem to help the water quality or are even useful as indicators of good water quality over time although not in the way accurate tests do.
I have one air stone vigorously bubbling in every one of my pleco breeding tanks in addition to a sponge filter running in air lift mode with other sponge filter driven by a power head to provide a brisk current.

It really is not necessary to keep them in such mineral free water. I find mine breed fine in tap water with a KH 6, GH 7 and pH 7.4. TDS=345 ppm. I believe a few others can attest to the ability of L260 to breed in their moderately hard water. The values I posted for my tap water are on the dividing line between what I consider moderately hard or moderately soft water. I've successfully bred and raised wild Blue Discus in water harder than what I have now.
I did sometimes use partial water changes of 30% RO water occasionally to help try to stimulate the L260 and L134 into breeding but my
fresh water tap water proved to be just as effective as RO. Your tap water will dictate what ratio of RO to tap water works best to reach your target values. TDS approaching 0.0 ppm is not good for any living thing.
The risks associated with inadequately buffered and aerated RO water are just too great. The last thing this species needs is radical changes of chemistry like a sudden and preventable pH crash. The young fry are even more sensitive to these changes.
I am not anti-RO water.
I always have 110 gallons in storage because I prefer to keep and breed soft water fish species. But I never object to breeding soft water species that have proven to be just as easy to keep and breed in more stable harder water.

I don't know if you ever treated your L260 for Gill Flukes and internal round and tape worms but unless they are tank raised fish I can guarantee they do have some or all of these parasites. That's the way they come from the wild. Even if they are treated once that is only the beginning. It isn't possible to completely eliminate all parasites so treating wild Plecostomus a few times over a couple of years is a good idea. The preferred drugs, praziquantal and flubendazole are remarkably safe.
Sorry about your loss. Most of us have lost at least few wild plecos over the years.

[quote="apistomaster"]Your fish could only have lived in pure RO so long if there was a source of minerals being dissolved from the substrate......

I really appreciate you taking the time to type that out. It actually made me see things a lot better.

Here in LA our tap is quite hard, around 14kh, so I will have to find a happy median of tap/RO.

I have 2 L260's still holding on. I have stabilized the water I believe, added a small dose of Kent RO right and also did a 25% w/c this morning with tap water(w/prime). My temp is around 78-79. I am going to test the levels later on today, but as of this morning, ammonia was at 0 and nitrates were around 8 or so. I did add a bag of ammo-carb to the filter box, in hopes that can help keep any other water problems to a minimum for the short term.

Thank you again for that response Apistomaster!!!

Mike

Hi Mike,
You are welcome. I learned much of what I now know because others were so generous about sharing their hard earned experiences.

I had not noticed the low(for Hypancistrus) temperature of 79*F. They really need about 84*F.

One other point I really did not make well is that HOB and canister filters not using spray bars often do not allow for the aquarium water to reach close to the dissolved O2 levels possible for a given temperature. That is why I recommend using an air stone in conjunction with your filter with these fish. Over long periods, Hypancistrus spp do not thrive in water that for them, is too cool..

The issue of treating for their common parasites is serious and needs to be addressed. Parasites affect ability to use nutrition adequately and the fish need their gills to be functioning at peak efficiency. Gill Flukes are a common problem but fortunately an easy one to deal with.
Gill Flukes are very common among wild fish and they compromise their ability to extract the available dissolved O2.
While cooler water can have a higher dissolved O2 than warmer water the cool water does not allow the metabolism of L260 to run attheir optimum. The saturation level of dissolved O2 at 79*F(DO= 8.1%) and 84*F(DO= 7.7%). Hypancistrus L260 have evolved to live in fast warm water so your aquarium conditions should be designed to match their natural habitat as closely as possible. Lower temperatures will not allow their immune system to function as well as it should. They need to be treated for these parasites and kept warmer.

The overall picture is far more complex than just water chemistry. All of the factors that have been discussed need to be addressed simultaneously, not one at a time.

apistomaster wrote:Hi Mike,

The issue of treating for their common parasites is serious and needs to be addressed. Parasites affect ability to use nutrition adequately and the fish need their gills to be functioning at peak efficiency. Gill Flukes are a common problem but fortunately an easy one to deal with.
Gill Flukes are very common among wild fish and they compromise their ability to extract the available dissolved O2.

The overall picture is far more complex than just water chemistry. All of the factors that have been discussed need to be addressed simultaneously, not one at a time.

Where can I find the medicine for Gill Flukes?

I have this at home that says flukes is one thing it does.

http://www.drsfostersmith.com/product/p ... 2968000000

But I have not used it yet. But it has been recommended on this site numerous times as safe for pl*cos.

andywoolloo wrote:I have this at home that says flukes is one thing it does.

http://www.drsfostersmith.com/product/p ... 2968000000

But I have not used it yet. But it has been recommended on this site numerous times as safe for pl*cos.

Excellent, thank you!

You can buy it at most fish stores too, hopefully you won't have to order it. Cause that might take a week.

apistomaster wrote: I don't know if you ever treated your L260 for Gill Flukes and internal round and tape worms but unless they are tank raised fish I can guarantee they do have some or all of these parasites. That's the way they come from the wild. Even if they are treated once that is only the beginning. It isn't possible to completely eliminate all parasites so treating wild Plecostomus a few times over a couple of years is a good idea. The preferred drugs, praziquantal and flubendazole are remarkably safe.
Sorry about your loss. Most of us have lost at least few wild plecos over the years.

Okay, so I have 2 left of the 7. Last night those two were displaying the same symptoms as the other 5 did before they passed. I went searching my LFS for some praziquantal, I couldn't order it online, I knew I only had hours to work with. Once the others showed the signs, they were gone within 12 hours.

Well, I was only able to find Parasite Clear, by Jungle. It contains praziquantel, diflubenzuron, metronidazole, and acriflavine. Well, I put the required dose in and tried to be patient. I woke up early today, and sure enough, they were still there!! I am not out of the water yet, but this is a good sign so far. I won't start being happy until after 2 more days I guess.