Bristlenose Pleco Odd Death

Hello @Billy2   

Welcome to the forum, and sorry to hear that you have lost your bristlenose.

I have two bristlenose plecs, but have not experienced the sort of issue that you have described, so it may take a while to research the problem.

I hope you don't mind if I ask a few more questions.

What are the water parameters of your tap water? The information is usually found on your water providers website.

Had you cycled the 64L tank? Or perhaps used a filter bacteria starter product?

When upgrading to the 215L tank, did you transfer any filter media from the old tank filter, or use any filter bacteria starter products?

What other products do you use - dechlorinator, fertiliser for plants, planting substrate, root tabs, etc.

If you could also post a picture of your tank that may also be quite useful.

I have a few thoughts at the moment, and a bit more information will help us to try to pin down the answer for you.

Again, sorry to hear about your bristlenose, they can have a lot of character, I'm very fond of mine.

Can’t seem to send image, keeps coming up with error message? Any pointers😕

Not sure Matt, trying to send a picture direct from phone. Not sure what the format is🤷🏻‍♂️

Lovely tank. Welcome to the forum and very sorry that your characterful bristlenose plec died under what must have been a scary episode to witness.

Like Littlefish, I also have a couple of thoughts as to the potential cause, but if you answer her questions, that might help us narrow down the potential cause and indicate whether each of us is along the right lines or not.

As far as the goldfish tank is concerned, you will need to upgrade that soon, I'm afraid - http://injaf.org/aquarium-fish/the-goldfish-section/what-size-tank-for-goldfish/

Looking forward to hearing the answers to the questions, so that we can help establish what went on and hopefully prevent any similar episodes among the remaining inhabitants.

Ok, I’ll try this again.  Thanks littlefish for your reply and kind welcome.  As said I thought I had post all this in reply so not sure what happened to it when I pressed post last night 🤷🏻‍♂️

So the 64l tank was cycled for three weeks.

When I changed tank I ran the internal filter from old tank in unison with the new canister filter for 3 weeks before removing (using the same media).  In those three weeks I did 15% water change every other day and added one capful of seachem bacteria each day (2 on water change days).

I add a capful of seachem plant fertiliser every 3 days and have added crystal clear once or twice.  I obviously use dechlorinator on every water change and ammonia remover each time I add new fish (not really sure why but I guess you can’t have too little of it 😁).  The only other chemical I’ve used is some white spot treatment when my Cardinals got ich a few weeks ago.  I added some carbon sponge to my filter for 24 hrs after the treatment was finished and they had all recovered.

In general I feed the fish a varied diet alternating between good quality flakes, pellets and frozen foods (bloodworm, artemia, cyclops and daphnia).  I have on the odd occasion put live insects in the tank which they’ve gone mad for but that’s a rarity.

Specific to the bristlenose I would give him plec pellets by vitalis every other evening or plecostomus by King British as well as the odd slice of cucumber.  To be honest I never really saw him eat anything I put in the tank.  Would see him regularly on the glass or on the top of the heater casing and sometimes on ornaments et al.  Tbh I could drop a pellet right next to him and he wouldn’t take it but he must have been getting enough elsewhere as he had a decent paunch on him.  The pellets, tablets and cucumber would all be gone by the morning but the other fish showed an interest and my two yellow rabbit snails also have a keen penchant for cucumber.

Finally, I have two pieces of bogwood, a decent sized piece of driftwood and a large spider wood in the tank which to be fair I got partly as hiding places for all the fish but mainly for the bristlenose (who btw my daughter named Milo)

I have a Fluval Aquasky light which I have set for sunrise between 5-7am then cloudy until the evening and then sunset between 8-10.  I have the night setting as 2% blue (moonlight) every other night and have it switch off the alternate nights.

The only question I can’t answer is the water parameters from the tap, need to ask the wife who the provider is.  She sorts the bills, I give her the money 😬

PH in the tank is 7 if that helps at all.

Thanks 👍

One final thing and this is predominately for fcmf, this is the flower bed I want to turn into a pond to put the goldfish in.  I intend to cut the internal corners out a considerable amount (as crudely highlighted) to give a more uniform swimming route as I don’t think they would appreciate having to constantly zigzag round it. My questions would be would this give sufficient space especially the turning circle the link spoke of.  If so how would you go about first filling the pond, do you need to dechlorinate or does this happen naturally if left to settle and how long would you leave it before transferring the fish.  I understand they’re quite hardy and tolerable to different temperatures but coming from an indoor tank that’s generally around 19 degrees how would you go about transitioning them.  Should you put anything in the pond, plants, soil, stones/gravel? 

Anything else you could suggest I may well have missed out please let me know.  Would that be better than getting a larger tank for them? Mind you I’ve already got two fish tanks in HER kitchen so getting another at least double the size of the larger one won’t be an easy sell.  I suppose I should be grateful that she’s agreed to give up get flower bed 😁 thanks in advance 👍

Would it be easy to rearrange the ‘blocks’ into a more formal shape (rectangle or L shape). I was thinking that it might be a bit of a nightmare to fit a liner into the shape you’ll have after cutting the blocks.

Hi daveyng thanks for the reply.  I agree it would be much easier but I laid the patio to suit as my wife wanted something a little different that complemented the garden so I think I’d be pushing my luck if I wanted to change it now unless I was going to reshape the patio.  Tbh as the father of a 5 yr old and 3 yr old twins I honestly don’t know when I’d find the time lol 😆

Just to warn you about shops - a lot of them haven't a clue about what is good or bad about water conditions. Some will say that having a bit of ammonia or nitrite in the water is fine, when zero is the only safe amount. And nitrate should ideally be under 20 ppm, though some regions have a lot more than that in the tap water.

Always go by the numbers 

Sorry for my belated reply, @Billy2.

Alas my efforts were not sufficient and the poor little guy passed, my daughter was inconsolable and I promised her a new one once we had buried him in the garden in a purpose built coffin (overkill I know but hey it’s what she wanted 🙄😁).

Definitely not overkill for a much-loved fish, I can assure you.

I was told in the aquatic shop that they needed 30l per goldfish so was happy that it would be sufficient and in fact got a replacement for the dead one (a black moor she called Moby).  Goldie, the common goldfish settled in really well and looked happy wizzing around doing lengths in his new abode (something he’d never been able to do before).

I have a raised flower bed I built that I’ve convinced the wife to allow me to turn into a pond.  I will send an image of that and maybe you could tell me if you think this would be sufficient, it’s an odd shape.  Having said that I’m unsure now reading the link you sent whether the black moor can go outside or not but your advice would be greatly received.

Fantastic that you're planning on creating a pond - that would be great for Goldie but Moby / fancy goldfish would indeed be better in a tank. In time, hopefully you'll be able to upgrade but, in the meantime, ensure that you do sufficiently large and frequent water changes to keep ammonia and nitrite at 0 and nitrates at no more than 20 ppm above the level of nitrates in your tap water. This might require up to 50% water changes daily in a small tank but daily monitoring of the water quality (ammonia, nitrite and nitrates) will help determine what is required.

One final thing and this is predominately for fcmf, this is the flower bed I want to turn into a pond to put the goldfish in.  I intend to cut the internal corners out a considerable amount (as crudely highlighted) to give a more uniform swimming route as I don’t think they would appreciate having to constantly zigzag round it. My questions would be would this give sufficient space especially the turning circle the link spoke of.  If so how would you go about first filling the pond, do you need to dechlorinate or does this happen naturally if left to settle and how long would you leave it before transferring the fish.  I understand they’re quite hardy and tolerable to different temperatures but coming from an indoor tank that’s generally around 19 degrees how would you go about transitioning them.  Should you put anything in the pond, plants, soil, stones/gravel? 

Anything else you could suggest I may well have missed out please let me know.  Would that be better than getting a larger tank for them? Mind you I’ve already got two fish tanks in HER kitchen so getting another at least double the size of the larger one won’t be an easy sell.  I suppose I should be grateful that she’s agreed to give up get flower bed 😁 thanks in advance 👍

Fantastic that you have been allowed to convert the raised bed into a pond. What is the capacity/volume of the pond? Would it have enough space for Goldie to turn without a problem if he grew to 12-18" which is likely to occur very swiftly post-transition to the pond. The pond needs to be deep enough and provide sufficient cover and protection for Goldie to hide from winged or other predators too. I don't have experience of building and maintaining ponds, unfortunately, but @Matt has built one recently and may be best placed to advise on this.