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2nd Gold Nugget has died.
He was fine for 10 days then starting to 'breath' very deeply and then found dead. Thes is the second small L018 in the last 3 months from two different lfs.
No Ammonia, Nitrite, Nitrate and temp (26c) and pH 7.0.
Only feed algae tablets and courgette.
Tank contains bogwood and plastic plants.
Also got an L205, 3 Angels and Rapheal Talking in same 120ltr tank and they are OK.
Any ideas what i am doing wrong?

I have since bought an LDA33 Big White Spot. Any advice on keeping these? Feeding on Algae tablets, courgette and potato as recommended by lfs (Pier Aquatics, Wigan).

HELP!

Steve

Have you checked your oxygen levels?,L numbers tend to come from moving waters and therefore require high levels of O2

Well I am not sure what could be your problem, but as mentioned above be sure that there are a lot of oxygene available. I have had my 3 L177 for almost a year now and they are doing very fine and are getting bigger and bigger. They are in a 200 l, temp is around 28 C, and the water turnoverrate is 6-8 with a airdiffuser in the filtreoutlet. Also remember to feed some frozen food or other "meaty" food in addition to the vegs.

Sorry to hear about your Gold Nugget. Didn't think of Oxygen before, don't know why? All my tanks have good turnover and surface agitation so that could've been a factor. Your LDA33 is a Baryancistrus sp. also so feed as Pier suggested with a bit of meaty food as well a couple of times a week. If you don't like the idea of more Prawns try frozen mysis shrimp. Mine love the stuff!!!

I have never had luck with gold nuggets. They are beautiful fish, but I think if I go for another of that color pattern, I will go with a Goldy, plus I like their size

Thanks for all the advice.

I change 20% of the water a week.
I have two pumps in the tank. The tank is a Juwel 121 (ltrs) and has a built in pump and filter which turns water x4 per hour and adjitates the surface. Also, I have a small filter pump with no filter medium which asks just to move the surface water.
I do feed the other fish in the tank frozen blood worms, shrimps, daphnea etc.

I do think the two L018 i bought were from the same imported wild caught batch as they were purchased from shops close to each other who probably buy from the same wholesaler/importer. I have heard wild caught examples can hold parasitic worms in their digestive system which can grow rapidly when fead better quality foods following a long trip from Brazil. any views?

Thanks again.

Steve

As a retailer we regulary bring in many forms of Nuggets and have noticed that the ones offered cheaply tend to die. So we tend to pay a little extra from other wholesalers who like ourselves quarantine these fish for a short time. This does'nt erradicate 100% of problems but it certainly helps. By following this measure we now only lose around 2% of Lno's bought in. Some fish can sometines have worms, that cause serious problems and weight loss in fish but some like canalanus only seem to infect livebearers. Fish with worms can sometimes be observed with protusions around the anal area. Your fish could have died due to being treated with antibiotics at some stage as a preventative measure, this can unfortunately leed to more problems and sometimes death. But I would say the fish has suffered from oxygen shortage in transport or ammonia poisoning.

STINGRAY

This is a tad off topic but do you know any way to treat these worms?I ask this because I notced one of my rams having a sort of red worm protruding from its vent and i am worried it will infect my other fish.It looked like a little red spike and moved a little bit.

Thanks

Hi!

Well sincerely I doubt that worms could be the only cause... because how explaining the others species are not bothered as bad as the gold nugget.
Gold Nugget are not the only Loricariidae that are parasited. Some other Loricariidae are living along with the Gold Nugget and are not bothered as much as they are.
the only species that tend to die a bit like the Gold Nuggets are Ancistrus ranunculus.

Usually these are very underfed when coming , plus they seem to need a high concentration of disolved oxygen... they also seem to be more sensitive to water pollution...

One last thing bigger specimens seem to be more sensitive than smaller one...

Cheers
Yann

T I will get you the name of the medication we use. It is only available from vets unfortunately but does work well. I believe it is nearly the same as a dog wormer but dosage is weaker.

Hi Stingray!

Can you also put the active substance of the medication as some of us that are not where you are could be interested into buying such product but might find it with a different name!

Cheers
Yann

Hi
For Camallanus I once used something called Decaris (actually a cattle, pig, sheep dewormer). Its active ingredients is Levamisol. It's some years ago and I can't remember the dosage I used. But try searching the net. I killed no fish (incl pleco's and loaches) and the worms disappeared. Hope you get rid of the worms
Steen

Hi!

Im using the german standard book from UNTERGASSER:

He advises a medicine produced by german company Bayer named Concurat-L 10%. Stating that it was intended for cattle. Only against worms in the digesting system. 2g in 1 litre Water put living bloodworms into this and wait till the first ones die then feed the remaining instantly.

STINGRAY

Which shop do you work for and do you normally stock a good range of L numbers?

thanks

Hi Steen, Thats the 1 we use. The dose was about 5ml fo 10 gals, but will have to check strength we used. Guppies that were treated recovered quickly and it did'nt harm any cats. As medicenes go it was'nt cheap. If the fish have over internal infestations ie Hexamita (hole in the head, more common in cichlids) a substance called metrodozinale can be used instead.

imho this whole prescrition stuff shouldnt be used be "normal" aquarists i.e. antibiotics can do more harm than good if used unwisely...

Merlin 2. The shop I own is J and D aquatics and we are in the West Mids near the Merry Hill Shop Centre. We carry well over 200 diff cats from Peppered cats through to Syno Granulosus and at the moment we have some lovely L113, L24,L25, L114,L273 to name just a few of the nicer L nos . I personally like the bigger cats in the Pim family and are after another M Tigrinus to go in our ray tank. We can usually get most cats but the Blue eyed Panaque still eludes us. As a fish keeper for more than 18 yrs I cannot stress enough that quality comes first not quantity or price, and all people visiting us soon get to know us and apprecate our fish keeping philosophy.

Hi

I'll recommend Levamisolhydrochlorid (75mg/ml) to deworm fish.

-Klaus