pleco disease?

[fishrookie]

My pleco has a HUGE belly. When I looked in the tank this afternoon I noticed that his belly was so distended that he can't even "latch" on to the side of the tank. There was also a dead fish floating...Did he eat too much? is he also dying? I checked the PH and everything is in the normal range. It's been hot here so the tank HAS gone up in temp but we're back to seattle rain today so the tank is a happy temp. Waddya think?

[Fishmonger70]

Size of tank? What's in the tank? What are your other water parameters, ie nitrite, nitrate, ammonia, hardness, etc?

[punkrockfish]

give us all the info you are capable of giving, just like fishmonger asked for. anything about the dead fish that we should know (physical appearance upon discovery/any strange behaviors recently)? did the belly just appear over night? what do you feed/how often?

[fishrookie]

It's a 55 gallon tank. I don't know anything other than pH. Apparently I really need to wise-up... I cleaned the tank last week and everyone seemed fine. I had 3 blue gourami fish, now down to two. That's the one I found floating. I left Sunday morning, came home Monday afternoon and found him floating. He looked like he'd been pecked a bit. When I left everyone seemed fine although I have had a LOT of algae blooming.

I feed the fish with blood worms and flakes 2-3xs per day.
There is one angelfish
2 clown loaches
10 neons
2 serpae tetras
1 black goast knifefish
1 rainbow shark
2 blue gourami
1 pleco
1 african dwarf frog

[brian1973]

IMHO you are definately overfeeding...and what is falling to the bottom is probably being pick up by the pleco...but you could very easily have high nitrates/nitrites/ammonia with that feeding schedule. This is just my opinion and others may feel differently.

Also I know my pleco seems to have become a bit fat here lately and he almost gets no feeding other than what he picks up from the oscars leftovers

[Fishmonger70]

I agree with Brian. I only feed once per day, in the evening, and sometimes they go a day w/o feeding. You'd be suprised how long fish can go w/o feeding them. Cut back your feeding and try not to let the food hit the bottom of the tank. If it does, you are prabably feeding too much at once. Also invest in a Freshwater master test kit. API makes a great kit that measures pH, nitrite, nitrate, and ammonia. Or you can take a sample of your aquarium water to your local LFS and they should be able to test it for you. Personally I would invest in the kit. Also you should do a 10-20% water change every couple weeks if you are not doing so already.

[fishrookie]

Thank you for your humble opinions. I will definitely heed that advice. Way too much food I guess. I dumped some salt in the tank...probably another bad idea. Hopefully he makes it. Apparently not only do I have a "darwin" garden but also a "survival of the fittest" fish tank as well.

[fishrookie]

One more thing, when you say 1x per day how much food? 2 blood worm cubes? 1?

[brian1973]

I only give bloodworms once a week..you only want to feed as much as they will eat in a few minutes. I would go with flakes as a daily or every other day staple food then give the cubes once maybe twice a week and dont feed flakes on that day. I am not sure what a ghost knife eats. The Dwarf Gourami may have just gotten beaten up, I know the websites recommend keeping pairs of gouramis but males can be very aggressive towards each other, and unless you specifically ordered females you almost definately have male dwarf gouramis.

If you notice the fish in my 90g in my sig. the only fish in that tank that get fed a regular basis is the oscars, everyone else gets the scraps leftover, I occassionaly drop in some sinking wafers for the cats and pleco but not with any regularity.

[Pure]

I assume this is a common pleco? Feeding that much protein could have very well caused the pleco to develop bloat. Over feeding non carnivorous plecs protein rich foods will often cause this. If that is what has happened bout all you can do is keep the water quality up with weekly water changes and cut back, way back on the blood worms until it goes down. Adding an air stone can help so isn't a bad idea.

Then again commons are huge gluttons so he may just be stuffed.

Bloat can be fatal and often is so immediate attention needs to be made to the situation.

When you feed blood worms 1 cube is plenty for how many fish you have.