Pleco breathing faster than normal

[boogaloo]

Hi,

Over the past couple of days, my common plec seems to be breathing faster than normal. He doesn't do it all the time, but I've never seen him do this before. He's eating normally, but I'm concerned something is not right. I've tested the water - the nitrates were higher a fortnight ago than I would have liked (40ppm), but I've upped the water changes and have stabilised them back at 20ppm. Both ammonia and nitrites have been registering 0 and the pH is unchanged at 6.8. He hasn't been hovering near the surface or the filter outlet.

I recently added 11 small fish (two scissortails and small tetras) from my mum's tank. She'd had them for around 18 months with no health issues. I'm wondering if this has overstocked the tank, so I'm going to move some of them to other tanks today, but could this be the problem? The tank is a Rio 300 with an EX1200 and a HH01 air filter running, alongside the Juwel internal. The temp is 24-25C and there are also three air stones running. The current population of this tank is:

Common plec
3 boseman rainbows
11 marbled hatchets
9 bronze corys
15 glowlights
15 x rays tetras
2 scissortails
5 neon tetras

I can move the neons out to my cardinals tank, and should be able to move the scissortails out to another tank too, but is this likely to be enough? None of the other fish are showing any signs of illness or distress. With some juggling, I could probably move the xrays or glowlights as well, if necessary. Any advice most welcome! Cheers.

 

[D-MAC]

I wouldn't say that you are overstocked for a 300 ltr, and you have plenty filtration! If it was lack of oxygen, more than 1 fish would be showing symptoms...I have seen this when fish have gill fluke, but again not on 1 fish only...Have you seen the fish twitching or scratching its self off of objects? I would try adding larger air stones for a day or two to see if that helps, if not you may have to try some Sterazin just in case it may have fluke...One other thing would be bacterial gill disease...You should be able to tell if its this, if the gills look pale or eroded

 

[boogaloo]

Hi Derek, thanks for getting back to me.

No sign of twitching or scratching at all - aside from his breathing being a bit faster than normal (I wouldn't call it panting, it's not that bad), his behaviour seems normal. The gills look normal too - no signs of paleness or erosion. Every other fish in the tank looks fine - aside from two white clouds that developed pop-eye over a year ago, I've never had any obvious health issues in this tank, the fish either die from old age or I've had the occasional new arrival that died.

I'll watch him over the weekend, and if it continues, I'll get some Sterazin. Cheers.

 

[macvsog23]

I agree