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I just witnessed my the death of my bulldog pleco.
He is, was 2inch and new to the tank for about one month. Doing fine except for a small 2 millimeter diameter scrap on forhead. There was also a small,faint dark black stripe running down his head and the "scrap" was located in the middle and 2/3 up the length up the stripe. The strip was there before the scrap. Maybe normally color?
The scrap could have happen due to fighting with cichlid. I have witnessed more aggression towards the cichlid form him then from the cichlid towards him. It did not appear to fungus or bacterial and only happen the other day, I didn't feel the need to med for anything at this point.
He was acting fine, sucking on the front glass and then all of sudden started to do a rapid 360' circle in a approx. 3 inches diameter. This carried on for a 2-3 second and then he swam toward a near rock where he was ramming himself against it for a second or two. He then flip on his back and started to convulse for a few seconds. Stop for a couple more seconds and then convulsed for another second and stop. He then arched briefly after another second and repeated arched after another 2-3 seconds and then nothing. ???????
The tank is 75g with african mix. Ammonia 0, nitrite 0, nitrate 15-20, ph 8.0, temp 78', weekly vac and water change. Other fish do not appear ill or sick.
thanks for your thoughts..............openwater

bulldog R.I.P 12/01/2004

Did you feed him anything supplemental like algae wafers? Most aquariums don't have enough food to sustain them.

Does this cichlid tank have salt? What kind of salt and how much? Do you add salt to the replacement water for that which evaporates? If so, then the salinity could have been too much. I have high pH in my area and have seen many plecs and other scaleless fish doing fine in 8.0. However, is it possible that the pH went a tad higher? Cichlids may be more tolerant of slightly higher pH than the plec.

We may never know what happened: Injury from another fish? Bacterial/Viral/Parasitic infection affecting central nervous system at end stage?

The final moments sound like what may occur in any creature undergoing death - disorientation. Bacterial infections can do this, but so can other neurological conditions. I've seen fish with septicemia (blood streaks and red dots at base of fins), go into what I would call a death spiral within an hour or two of death. I've read that with some infections that can bring on septicemia the bacteria would enter their central nervous system, much like we would be infected with meningitis or encephalitis and cause this "disorientation".

How about oxygen levels in the tank? How crowded is it?

I don't know much about cichlids. Do we typically keep a plec in such a tank? Could they have been harassing him?

R.I.P bulldog