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Hello, I had a group of 5 L81 I have had in my catfish tank for the last couple of years, their are also bristelnose, talking catfish, and a electric blue jacks, their home is a 100 gal, ph is 6.8 and the dkh is 5 with 1 gal of fresh water drip every hour.
the last fish I added was 3 baby EB jacks 1 week before thanksgiving, I watch the tank alot and have never seen the jacks pay any attition what so ever to the pleco's and cats other then getting out of the way of the larger pleco's and cat's.
about 2 weeks ago I lost one of the l81 he did not look like anything was wrong with it, but then 2 days latter I lost another l81 and a few days latter lost another l81, I then took the remaing two l81 out and put them into a sepperate tank by them selves, at that time 1 of the 2 had a couple of scuffs on it's side which looked like scrapes or mayby fighting with someone in the tank, but did not look very bad at all, I treated with melafix and pimafix, then today the one with the marks died, the last one who is the smallest of the 5 seems to be ok.
all the other fish in the 100 gal look and act perfect, I was wondering if their is a disease which would tarket only the l81, it seems very strange only the l81 seem to be affected.
here is a picture of the one i lost today.
Their has been no change in the water other ten adding carbon to the canister filter 1 mounth ago to clear the tanning of the water a little ,from the peat and wood in the tank.

Gold nuggets are not the easiest fish to keep long term - there are plenty of threads here where people have problems of one sort or another with them & the slightest varience away from their ideal conditions seems to herald problems which are often not quick or easy to resolve.

The body marks look like small wounds from aggression or territory disputes & the dorsal looks ragged as if something has been having a go at it. Have you got a nitrate reading for the water? These often suffer when oter species seem in perfect health.

I took the nitrate a few days ago when i seperated the last 2 and it was at 10,Nitrite 0 ammonia 0 I two thought the marks looked like scrapes or fighting marks, the tank is filled with wood so I really dont see were they could get scrapes though, I tought maybey they were fighting amounghst them selves, were I have heard bristlenose and the cats are somewhat peacfull with others, maybe the 4 which died were males and the last one is the female seeing it has no marks and is the smallest?
but then again they dont look beat enough to have died from injuries do you think?
with the automatic water changes on my tanks the water quality has never shown a reading other than 0 on the nitrite and amonia.
I have no gravel or sand in any of my tanks, and keep any wood or large rocks from resting on the bottom as much as possiable so I can keep a jet running across the bottom to keep waste pushed into the far corrnor, were I vacume out every week.
Really has me puzzeld to happen all at once just to the l81.

I wonder if adding the carbon to the filter, were they have never had carbon in the tank before could have missed them up somehow?

What are you feeding these? There is a good article in Shane's world about "Yellow Seam Pleco" (or some such title) that goes into some of the difficulties keeping these fish, and some of the solutions.

Edit: Adding carbon to the filter should have no effect on the fish (unless the carbon is somehow contaminated by some type of toxic substance - but I find that quite unlikely).

Another thought would be that the fish are indeed fighting - either within the group or with some other fish - although the pictures don't look like they are badly damaged in any way. What does the belly-side look like?

What is the temperature in the tank? As far as I know, Jack Dempsey's are a cooler water species, where as these fish like quite high temperatures...

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Mats

Golden nuggets can be difficult. As you've had them for years I don't suspect anything related to temperature, food etc. did cause their deaths. Unless you changed something recently. While they are not fuzzy when it comes to water parameters (excluding temperature) they can be quite sensitive to changes in the water chemistry. Did you move or change the source from which you get your water?

It looks like your fish had reached a resonable size. There are reports stating that they are quite aggressive towards each other when mature. 100gal is not particularly big, so maybe their deaths were the result of stress due to territorial fights. The fish in the picture certainly looks like it.

Hello,
The water drip is from my ro system, which drips through a canister filled with peat then into tank. this is were I have always got my water from, I keep all my tanks at 75 degress, this is what I have always had them at, a 200 gal frontosa tank, 200 gal african tank 90 gal south american tank and my cat tank,
they all seem happy at that tempture, and it keeps the aggresion of the africans down somewhat.
I am leaning towards fighting amounghst themselves, although I have never witnessed this, I am going to put the 1 surviver back into the 100 gal in the morning, it does not show any marks on it at all, it is also the smallest of all I had, 1 tough Little fish I guess, unless it was the only female out of the bunch and the males were fighting over her.
the belly of the fish which died looked ok.
I will post back in a few days once I see how she? does back in the 100.
They have always stayed close together in front of the power jet which shoots across the bottom, so maybey it was a teritouial fight.
Thanks that was a Very good artical in shane's world
http://www.planetcatfish.com/shanesworl ... m+pleco%3F+

The surviver is doing great back in it's home, actually seems to like it better without the others, is moving around, over all the wood instead of staying on the bottom right in front of the power head like they all did for the last 2 years.
it must have been fighting between the other 4 which killed them.
Thanks for the replys everyone.