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Hi Guys, first post on here as I am in severe need of help.

I have a 5 foot tank with Frontosa babies, and a range of Albino Long-fin Bristle-nose between 4-8cm. There is nothing aggressive in the tank picking on the bristle-nose other than themselves fighting over who sits on said specific piece of cucumber. They are not overfed. The tank reads 0 nitrates and 0 nitrites on (in date not expired) test strips and the ph floats between 7-7.2 depending on water changes. The water temperature floats at 26degrees Celsius. There is driftwood in the tank, as well as many rock hols and caves, there are also a few live wisteria plants but no other plants.

Recently (the past 3 days) I have had 3 of the smaller bristle-nose die, they turned white, lost energy and wound up upside down at the bottom of my tank and where removed as soon as I saw this.

Does anyone have any idea as to what could be causing this? There is no fin-rot or fungus, none of the frontosa or endlers are even displaying signs of sluggishness.

Thanks in advance, stressing me out thinking I might loose more of them!

If its only the ancistrus dying are they getting enough to eat try some boiled garden pea's shell them and drop them in. Anything not eaten by morning remove. A water change never hurt.

either not getting enough to eat, the tank is not cycled properly (what is the ammonia reading?), there is a lack of maintenance going on and the water is getting polluted, stray voltage from equipment, or the most likely culprit - pesticides.

Make sure you are washing the greens super well and boil them for 1-2 mins if possible. try zucchini instead of cucumber but make sure to wash!
if the bellies are sunken it may mean they have parasites.

as you can see there could be many things going on.

What is on the bottom (sand, gravel)? Is this a bare bottom tank?

My young (<1") had something similar. all the slow growing runts were much paler (some completely white) than the healthy quicker growing ones. I started feeding them daily, as much as they could eat in a day, and they started growing quicker & eventually got some color back.

this was in an established tank w/sand bottom & some driftwood. ammonia & nitrites 0, nitrates around 40. 25% water change weekly.
FYI, word of mouth around my area is that ammonia/nitrate test strips are fairly inaccurate VS the API liquid drops in the tubes. and don't even bother with the ammonia color card that stays in the tank.