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i bought a royal pleco on the 4 days ago (jan 29th) .. it's about 3 inches and he was full of ich .. since i could get him a decent price i said why not .. i bought him and stuck him in quarentine to treat his problem .. well anyhow .. oringinally he was REAL active and such but now he's quite sluggish now and now his eyes seem to be sucken into his head however the ich has cleared up a tiny bit .. we tested the water and everything is fine and the temp is 80F.. right now i am treating him for ich (Rid Ich) and internal parasites (started today with Hex-A-MIT) .. anyone know what could be the problem?

day we got him - ich w/ normal eyes



today - ich w/ suckin eyes



thank you

I dont think the fish will live, but carry on treating anyway. Increase temp to 86f and increase aeration. If the ich clears completely the fish as a chance. The fish may have internal problem and that as stressed him enough to then catch the whitespot problem. I don't think it is wise to purchase any fish which is not visibly healthy at any price as it will always prove costly in the long term. As a retailer I offer a gtee with fish sold does your lfs, if so get a healthy replacement. Good luck.

Sorry to hear about the fish. In general, when the eyes go into to the head there is little you can do. I just bought a 3 inch one, it was very healthy looking, extremely fat. When I put into my quarintine aquarium, it refused to eat. It died a few days later. I now think that maybe its fat stomach was a parasite or something like that. It was a shame...he was very pretty.

Make sure that there is plenty of driftwood in the tank. Panaque seem to be about the toughest loricariids and I have had them come back even after they dwindled to the "sunken eye" state. I think that they tend to make a come back because even when they are really sick they will still eat some wood. Many other loricariids will just not bother to look for food after they hit this state and their demise is certain.
-Shane

HI!

Be careful of what medications you use, especially for the internal parasit! Panaque/Panaqolus spp have bacterias to help them digest wood and take nutriments out of it. Depending on the product, you might kill these bacterias and make him eating wood totally useless!!!
Cheers
Yann

I have witnessed parasites in P.nigroliniatus as well. I had one who where very active and was eating all the time but it didn't grow one mm. It died after maybe a year an when I disected (?) it there were a big white "worm" (probably cestoda or something) in the gut. Guess it's the risk with wildcaught fish. Hope the litle guy on the pic will recover.

he died!!

sorry to hear that webmaster.
i had 3 L205 infected with ich recently but not as bad as having sunken eyes.
fortunately they managed to recover.
i did the same kind of treatment as u, anti-ich medication and raising the temp.
i also had daily water change of 20% to remove any free-swimming parasites if there's any. maybe my advise came abit late cos i just read ur posting.
i lost a L200 to my powerhead before and i have learnt my lesson.
hope that we gain experiences from one anothers encounter.

Hi,

I lost almost my entire poupulation of royals a few months back! Even till today, I have no idea what went wrong, seems to me they are the only ones affected as MOST of the other species in the same tank was not hit. The first sympton is slowdown in feeding and then sunken eyes and then it's gone!

Are royal plecos more sensitive to water quality or certain types of disease?
Really appreciate anyone wth any clue of what have happened. Now, I always fear a repeat whenever I feel the urge to replenish my collection. I need the confidence to start again.

Thanks,
Kevin

Atlas wrote:Hi,

I lost almost my entire poupulation of royals a few months back!

Thanks,
Kevin

Sorry to hear that Just curious, are you an LFS are are just a collector? Royals are one of my favorite plecos. I was going to attempt to breed them in the past, however due to several reasons I had to stop the attempt. I still have the web page that I was going to use: http://clayt101.tripod.com/royalpleco I think it still comes up as number 2 or 3 on yahoo when you search for royal plecos

I'm a keen hobbyist planning on a LFS soon.

Hope to hear of your success in breeding royals in the near future.

Just curious:

LiSCN/Atlas: Did you have driftwood in the tank?

-Klaus

Hi Klaus,

I do have driftwood in the tank?
Why you ask ?

Hi Kevin,

because they need driftwood - sadly some people realize this fact to late. I'm sorry to hear of your loss - but it's nice to know that they didn't die because of lack of driftwood.

-Klaus