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Hi there, havent been active on these forums for years now, but im hoping i can get some help.
I have a pleco (of some sort, never found out the exact type, it has yellow spots on a black/brown body and is about 15-20cm long) and he is about 8 years old now. I've moved out of my parents home and my tank and my fish still live at my parents place. today when i went back to clean/water change i noticed that he wasn't in his usual hiding spot under the main driftwood, instead he was simply in the bare corner of the tank. secondly it seems like his abdomen may be slightly sunken (from memory they should at least be flat ?? his actually seems to go in a bit from the sides). he's normally quite shy, usually swimming for cover when i come into the room, but this time he just sat in the corner in the wide open space, and didnt care when i waved my hand infront of him. his scales and the rest of his body looks fine.
so im at a bit of a loss as to why he is in the state he is. Could it be just old age? (how old do you expect plecos to live?) or should i be suspecting something more sinister?

cheers
jono

here are a couple of pics (please ignore the dirty intake!)

he looks like he is starving... have your parents been feeding him well??

Life expectancy that i found for smaller pleco's is around 15-20 years, so I do not think its old age....

hmm.. i'm pretty sure they are being fed, my parents have been doing it for a couple of years now.
with regards to the age, have you had plecos live 15-20 years? i know i've read that figure in the wild, but am unsure of the figures for the home aquarium.

What exactly is his feeding regime? Is he in the tank alone? Does he get lots of green veggies? Try putting a chunk of zucchini in the tank. Does he try to eat? Even if it is shy, it should make it's way to the chunk within half a hour.

TTFN --->Ta-Ta-For-Now
Kelly ;o}

Looks like nothing a good feed would not fix.
I would also like to know a lot more about your tank by that I mean every thing water conditions, filtration, all the tank maintenance and how it is done?
Feeding especially what he is fed how much and how often.
Also what else is in the tank with him?
Does he have a mate, live plants to graze over, a cave or something similar that he can call his own?

Keith

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Did I notice some plants in the tank? Is the setup old? I had a pleco of about 6-7 years old stop eating. Only after it was too late for her, I found that my plants had been accumulating dead roots (and all the toxic gases from decomposition) under the sand/gravel. She just wasn't happy with water quality even though things "seemed" fine.

I've heard it called "old tank syndrome". "Routine" maintenance just wasn't enough to really keep up with the substrate and over time the water quality had slowly changed. She had adapted with it, but reached a point where she just couldn't adapt any further. She stopped eating and wasted away. Oh the lessons of fishkeeping!