Lost 2 baby peppermint bristlenoses.

Hi, I bought 5 peppermint bristlenose fry less than a month ago. A week later one died, it didn't seem to be eating so I thought it must've starved itself.
Yesterday I noticed one of them was hanging off the window instead of the sponge filter they're all usually on. This morning I found it dead and some of my red cherry shrimp were sitting around it.
All of the spots below its body have disappeared and It's gone a greyish colour where the spots are gone. Also, on my java moss there's a film of jelly like stuff covering the ends.
I'm very sad that I've lost two of my pepps can anyone help?

Eeeep that doesn't sound good. You might want to do a small water change and gravel-vac the floor. Take that java moss out and give it a quick wash, and anything else that has that jelly on it
Might want to reduce the amount you feed the tank for a few days. Sorry to hear you lost a couple, peps are such lovely plecos.

hrmmm, def not cool loosing two of them. what are the levels in the tank of the various things (nitrate, nitrite ammonia, pH, temp)?

that will help a lot when it comes to figuring out what is up

Thanks guys, I don't have a nitrate or ammonia test kit but I figured the red cherry shrimp would be more susceptible to that than the pepps and the shrimp are fine.
My temperature is 24 degrees celcius.
I just checked the pH and it's about 7.6 now. I have a feeling it could be the pH since it went from about 6.5 to 7.6 in a month, but the other pepps seem happy too.
Also I noticed these bugs in the tank that look like worms with black heads but they act like mosquito larvae.
Another thing is that the dead peppermint doesn't have a white stripe on its tail like the other living ones do. It looks like somethings eaten the white bit off.

I've done something wrong. All the fish are acting really weird now. They aren't trying to hide, the shrimp are walking all over them and their fins are flared all the time.

iLiam wrote:

I've done something wrong. All the fish are acting really weird now. They aren't trying to hide, the shrimp are walking all over them and their fins are flared all the time.

When you say "I've done something wrong" what do you mean Have you done a large water change as the symptoms your describing sound very similar to pH shock. Young Bn's do not react well to sudden changes in pH.

Do you have gravel in your tank or any rocks as these could be possible causes for pH rising

indeed, keeping fish is a learning process and we have all made mistakes but one thing you can never rule out is that sometimes things just go wrong and its nothing to do with you.

anyway, lets set about fixing the issue.

Firstly, we need as much detail about the tank as possible.

I want you to fill this in...

Tank size:

Substrate:

filtration:

Airstone/sponge filter etc:

Inhabitance:

current water change system (before illness appeared):

water changes made since illness appeared:

As many levels as you know (pH, Ammonia, nitrate, nitirite, KH, GH, TDS, aanything you can find out, your local fish shop should be able to help with this):

any chemicals used (including carbon/chemical fitration inside the filter):

water source and treatment:

Major changes in the last 3 weeks (new fish, new plants, new anything or changes):

Symptoms (gasping, not moving, bloated, spots, wounds, stressed colours etc):

Pictures:

Once we know this stuff we can really start to pick apart the issues in the tank and figure out whats going on.

without this info we are just stabbing in the dark until we find that one bit of info we need

Tank size:

60x30x30cm, only temporary, next week I'm getting a huge one from my cousin.

Substrate:

Just gravel I think? Bought it from a fish store.

filtration:

Sponge filter

Airstone/sponge filter etc:

Sponge filter

Inhabitance:

?? Not sure unless you mean inhabitants. I've got about 20 red cherry shrimp and heaps of bugs I don't like. Damselfly larvae, limpets, seed shrimps (can't remember what they're called), pond snails, cyclops, i think bryozoa, few hydras (I think I killed most of them), and some worms I find every now and then but I don't know what they are. Also there were some things that acted like mosquito larvae but looked like worms with black heads. They couldn't seem to swim down and only wiggled around on the top of the water.

current water change system (before illness appeared):

Drain 5 litres of dirty water out, put 6 litres of tap water treated with seachem Safe in. Every third day.

water changes made since illness appeared:

One. The peppermint only died yesterday.

As many levels as you know (pH, Ammonia, nitrate, nitirite, KH, GH, TDS, aanything you can find out, your local fish shop should be able to help with this):

pH higher than 7.3.

any chemicals used (including carbon/chemical fitration inside the filter):

Chemical filtration.

water source and treatment:

Tap water, use seachem safe and leave in bucket for a couple of hours.

Major changes in the last 3 weeks (new fish, new plants, new anything or changes):


Nothing, except I put the pepps in about 3 weeks ago.
The tank had already been set up with cherry red shrimps in it for awhile.

Symptoms (gasping, not moving, bloated, spots, wounds, stressed colours etc):

They looked really thin for a couple of days, but they look better now. The last one that died didn't hide at the filter like it usually does and it had flared fins. I noticed one suddenly flare and go stiff but it only did that for like a minute. It also looked like something had eaten all the white stripes on its fins off. The lower half of it was missing white spots.

Pictures:
My camera is terrible and could barely take a picture of the fish. I tried to get a picture of the worms but my camera can't see them.

[img][/img]

Dead fishy missing spots.



Living fishy





Half of my tank




I'm hoping they're alright now, I washed the jelly java moss and I put melafix in the tank because I panicked.



Thanks guys


edit: I've got rocks in which I found outside and then boiled. I put vinegar over them and they didn't bubble so I thought they should be alright.

hrmmm, the only thing that stands out to me is that the filtration is a bit down but then again the tank is hardly overstocked. I always like to have a powerfilter in my tanks, especially with bristlenose as they produce a lot of poo and the current helps pick it up and shift it around. I would be getting a test done for ammonia as i think what has happened is that the tank was running at a very low level of waste input, the shrimp do not produce much, then when the bristlenose came along the increase in waste material quickly overloaded the sponge filter and there was a fatal build up of ammonia causing the fish to stress out and die. Cherry shirmp are sensitive to ammonia but once they are established they can be tough little buggers. I know my bristlenose fry will often go fins up before the cherry shrimp is something goes worng in the grow out tank.

i'm assuming you feed them alage wafers. Try throwing in a bit of cucumber as well, sure they will love it.

I have to say it might be your filtration, it looks ineffective, so your going to get such troubles..
I would get a bigger sponge filter or even better a small canister. Leaving the small sponge one in ther while you seed the new one, could even leave them both in there, it's always good to have a spare running in a tank for unexpected problems..

Thanks, I feed my bristlenose zucchini and sometimes algae wafers (algae wafers not so much because they don't eat it and it disperses everywhere), I've got a huge filter that looks like a big green cylinder but it looks like it'd suck up all my shrimp and I'm scared to use it/don't know how to use it. I'll buy a big sponge filter because the pepps and shrimp like hanging around them.
And are HOB filters any good? My three remaining fish are looking fine now, hopefully I don't lose anymore. I'm keeping an eye on the ones that leave the filter because the last two all seemed to go and die away from it.

Thanks again everyone, without this forum I'd be pretty lost

I tried clicking the thank button but it only let me do it for one person O_o

I use one of these



to cover my filter input, this then stops any of the fry getting sucked up in to the filter. Works well, curently have BN fry, Kribensis fry and Platy fry in the tank.

Only issue now is I've got to catch all the Platy fry to stop the kribs and mollies eating them...!! Luckily for them there is a lot of surface weed for them to hide in.

This picture shows it actually on the in take.



Hope this helps



Jon

yeah, i use something similar, i replace the cage with one of these