# Ugh.. killed some of my plecos.



## Ciddian (Mar 15, 2006)

Total duh..

I bough my little BNs some cucumber on the weekend and I guess I didn't clean them well enough. I've been offering the tank slices of the cucumber every couple of days.

One by one my plecos have been dying.. D:

All I can think of maybe it was the cucumber I added.. Really stinks. Shows me to not wash them well enough.


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## gucci17 (Oct 11, 2007)

Damn, sorry to hear Cid. Could be the pesticides?


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## Tbird (Oct 5, 2009)

Sorry to hear that!!  What kind of pleco's were they?


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## Ciddian (Mar 15, 2006)

Just BN's... I had one calico in there too and I can't figure out if the one that died was her. Everyone else is still okay for now.

I bought some cucumber that was super ripe for cheap. I am thinking it might have been pesticides unless really ripe is bad? It wasn't rotting at all.. 

I really hope I don't loose my male.. That guy is my fav..

I am gunna do a big w/c tonight and hopefully everyone will be alright.


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## Tbird (Oct 5, 2009)

Well hopefully the W/C will fix it!! I've never fed my guys cucumber, just Zuccini.


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## gucci17 (Oct 11, 2007)

I've fed both but prefer to feed zucchini.

Maybe it just rotted too quickly and fouled your water? Killing one which set off a chain reaction by degrading the water quality too quickly?

I dunno...maybe it was just a bad cuccumber.


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## Ciddian (Mar 15, 2006)

Very well could have been that too.. I'll haul out the tests!


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## Ciddian (Mar 15, 2006)

Hmm. it came up just under 0.6... I was curious as to what my tap water was at and I ran out of drops! But at 2 drops it was getting pretty bright. D:

Explains a bit why I've been having such a hard time with this tank off and on. I think I have high ammonia in my tap water.

Would you think dosing more prime help the situation?


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## bcarlos (Nov 19, 2009)

Very unlikely that it was a pesticide problem. A simple rinse under cold tap water suffices. 

Prime won't fix your amonia problem. What kind of filtration are you running? You may need to up your bio-media. I'd also search the tank to make sure there's nothing dead and rotting. It could very well be that the amonia spike is a result of the recently dead fish (i.e. perhaps you didn't discover it right away and it had some time to foul the water). 

Sorry for your loss, Jess-- it happens to the best of us!


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## Ciddian (Mar 15, 2006)

aweee.. D: Well I am currently trying to add more filtration to the tank. Its a 90 gallon with a filstar 4. All I have in there are sponge, filter floss, stars, ceramic rings, and some white stones.

I gotta get a new test kit, I'll grab one friday to see what everything is at. I have no cash atm 

Would a deep soil bed cause issues? I didn't realize when setting it up how much had actually gone in there because it was so cloudy. Its maybe about 4-5 inches deep at the back. 

Thanks for your help you guys. I was loosing odessa barbs here and there but I wasnt sure why. Everyone else was okay, then today I have two dead plecos. 

I'll move everything tonight during my water change and see whats up.


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## characinfan (Dec 24, 2008)

Sounds like a bacterial problem (rotting cucumber). Sorry about your loss.


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## AquaNeko (Jul 26, 2009)

Hey Cid. Sorry to hear of your pleco losses. Just an idea. You could buy the cukes or zukes organically or grow your own. I offered a while ago and the offer still stands for any pleco/herbo fish keepers here that I had a bumper crop of organically grown zucchini. I picked them fresh, washed and cut then up and froze them to preserve it. You may want to do that with your purchase if you go that route.

Also Johnsons Seeds makes a compact 'ideal for containers' as it is labeled zucchini plant which grows small and puts out smaller zukes (about finger tip to wrist length size and not the almost arm length size ones). I got some seeds extra if you'd like some or I could germinate one for you and you just keep it in a small pot.


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## Tbird (Oct 5, 2009)

AquaNeko said:


> Hey Cid. Sorry to hear of your pleco losses. Just an idea. You could buy the cukes or zukes organically or grow your own. I offered a while ago and the offer still stands for any pleco/herbo fish keepers here that I had a bumper crop of organically grown zucchini. I picked them fresh, washed and cut then up and froze them to preserve it. You may want to do that with your purchase if you go that route.
> 
> Also Johnsons Seeds makes a compact 'ideal for containers' as it is labeled zucchini plant which grows small and puts out smaller zukes (about finger tip to wrist length size and not the almost arm length size ones). I got some seeds extra if you'd like some or I could germinate one for you and you just keep it in a small pot.


Hey Aqua,

This sounds interesting. Some of my fish, along with my plecs, love the Zuccini. What kind of light would this plant need? How many Zuchini's per plant and how fast do they grow? just wondering if this is something that I could grow inside during the winter months. Just to save a little bit of money.

Thanks
Wil


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## AquaNeko (Jul 26, 2009)

Tbird said:


> Hey Aqua,
> 
> This sounds interesting. Some of my fish, along with my plecs, love the Zuccini. What kind of light would this plant need? How many Zuchini's per plant and how fast do they grow? just wondering if this is something that I could grow inside during the winter months. Just to save a little bit of money.
> 
> ...


Well the smaller zukes designed for containers (or small garden spaces) thier leaf span out diameter from my experience growing them in pots is the size of the standard keyboard or smaller. Zucchini is known in the garden as a proficient (sp?) cropper thus the jokes go that gardeners sneak surplus zukes to neighbours, others gardens, etc. If planted in the ground outside 2 plants seems to be suffice. Indoors I'd probably try with 2 plants as I've never grown them indoors. When I grew mine I had it in full sunlight. They grow FAST into the grounwhen the temps started to warm up. I would think they would give the same growth or slightly slowly because it's inside.

Zukes are heavy feeders so they will appreciate all the fert/nuts you can give them. Water change water is good  and not wasting the h2o that's rich in nitrates.  Or you could put a small 85gph fountian pump in your freshwater tank if it had a bit of over producing nitrates and put that timer on a 4-6 times on a day pumping water up to a gravel grow bed with the zukes in there then let the water drain back into the tank. Eventaully the zukes will grow and grow more thus cleaning your tank water of a lot of nitrates to 0.

You can do it with soil as well. I've not done it yet hydroponically or aquaponically (sp? or a word?) but I've seen a lot of videos of people with massive success with zukes grown in aquaponics.

Sunlight worked for my soil growing. I started my seeds out in peat pellets (you can use moist paper towel) and under CFL 6500k lighting before moving it outside. You may want to put the zukes by a window for natural sunlight and note how long the lighting it gets then suppliment it with a desk lamp for a couple hours on timer or just go by natures sunlight only.


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