L239 looking very thin

Reginator · Post by **Reginator** » 01 Nov 2006, 06:52

My L239 is looking undernourished, severely so. He is starting to have the have white patches showing on his head and body and I haven't seen him eat anything for ages, he also seems to have slightly sunken eyes. I'm going to seperate him into a hospital tank, but don't know how to go about getting him to eat or what would be the best food in his current state. Please help!

Kostas · Post by **Kostas** » 01 Nov 2006, 08:40

In a similar condition with my Panaque L190(sunken eyes and belly) i managed to save him by doing daily water changes and feeding him cucumber.I think it also helped a very soft piece of wood i offered him these days.But my fish WAS eating(although he hadnt been fed cucumber yet,only prepared foods) some days before this happend so i dont know if your pleco will accept cucumber if he refuses everything but from my experience all pleco readilly accept cucumber and dont refuse it the first times as it is done with other vegetables.

MatsP · Post by **MatsP** » 01 Nov 2006, 10:27

Courgette(zucchini) is often accepted when the fish aren't eating anything else, as well as already explained cucumber.

If the fish isn't eating, raising the temp a few degrees and plenty of water changing will also be good things.

Of course, moving the fish MAY actually not be a good thing - it stresses the fish and may cause it to keep off the food. It's a difficult decision - move can make it better because it's got no competition and you can more closely monitor the fish, but on the other hand, it's stressing the fish more than just leaving it be... There's no right or wrong answer for this, you just have to balance the pro's and con's of one or the other...

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Mats

Reginator · Post by **Reginator** » 01 Nov 2006, 11:30

I've got him in the same tank as before, but in a breeder box now, so I can give him food that no-one else can steal. He's never shown the slightest interest in courgette, the other loricariidae in his tank have all had a chomp at some point, but he never has. He ate a (very)small amount of frozen mosquito larvae today, but is steadfastly ignoring the courgette. He's in a tank with a high proportion of bottom feeders so maybe he's just being out-competed for food, if he recovers I'll stick him in a different tank with less competition for food, will keep you posted on progress, thanks for the cucumber tip, I'll try him on that tomorrow (national holiday here today, being a catholic nation) when the shops re-open...

Digital · Post by **Digital** » 01 Nov 2006, 23:44

Garlic.

Take some garlic and crush it into a pan of boiling water, then take your veg (i always use sweet potato for bad feeders) and put it in a seive or similar and steam it over the pan.

Also Kent Marine do a Garlic Xtreme which you just add directly onto the food. Link here http://www.kentmarine.com/foods/garlicxtreme.html

In my experiance with L239 i find they are somewhat hard to acclimatize properly and do bad in tanks with other lori's that are competeing with them for food.

Reginator · Post by **Reginator** » 02 Nov 2006, 07:38

RIP L.239.... Found him belly up this morning.

Kostas · Post by **Kostas** » 02 Nov 2006, 07:53

I am sorry to hear about your loss

MatsP · Post by **MatsP** » 02 Nov 2006, 09:23

Sorry to hear that.

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Mats