Hey guys. One of my favorite inhabitants of my tank has been my Albino Longfin Bristlenose Pleco. When I first bought him, he had a few tattered fins, nothing crazy. I figured it was just because of shipping when the LFS got him in. This was about 3 months ago when I purchased him.


Here's how he looked then











After about 2 weeks, the little tatters that he had in his fins had actually filled in, and he was looking gorgeous!



But now for the past month and a half or so, his long flowing fins have slowly shrunken, and are now he looks like a regular Albino Bristlenose almost!


sorry the pictures a little blurry; as soon as I went to snap the pic, he started to swim away





Right from the start, I thought "great, fin rot on my $20 fish". But it doesn't look like typical fin rot. It's not really deteriorating like fin rot normally does, the fins just seemed to have shrunken over a month or so.

The fish (as well as all others in the tank) otherwise seems perfectly healthy, and he eats like he should. The water parameters stay at a constant 0 ammonia, 0 nitrites, and 0 nitrates, because it's a pretty heavily planted tank. But what I'm concerned about is maybe the PH being at 6.4 . I read places that they can survive happily down to near 6, but some other sites say to never put them in a tank with a PH below 7, so I don't know what to believe.

There's also a regular finned Albino Bristlenose Pleco in the tank, and he's as healthy as can be too.

Any input? I want my pretty Longfinned back :(

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My 30 gallon planted freshwater - CONSTANTLY CHANGING

Well for one thing, that looks to be a female. If the other is a male he may be getting rough with her, although I have never had that happen. Also make sure that any place that she goes into doesn't have any sharp edges to it. Even a piece of wood that has been worn pretty thin can tear those fins.

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SUCCESS IS MEASURED BY YEARS, NOT MONTHS!!!
220 Tank build
http://www.aquariumforum.com/f15/sta...late-3253.html

the only thing in the tank other than the plants is two large chunks of drift wood, but they don't really have any noticeable sharp edges

in fact, the other Albino Bristlenose regular fins has longer, more healthy looking fins than this longfinned! I don't get it?!?

and yeah I haven't researched on how to sex them, but I do know that the males typically have larger and longer bristles on their nose, and this one's have grown in pretty good although it's hard to see it in that current picture because of the movement of the fish... if anything, the other standard fin Bristlenose looks more like a female

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My 30 gallon planted freshwater - CONSTANTLY CHANGING

Some females will have bristles just along the top of the mouth as it looks in the first 3 pics. I have a few females that way. It is hard to tell in that last pic though. There is something causing the fin damage though. You might try isolating it for a couple of weeks in a tank on its own, with lots of water changes to see if they start growing back.

__________________
SUCCESS IS MEASURED BY YEARS, NOT MONTHS!!!
220 Tank build
http://www.aquariumforum.com/f15/sta...late-3253.html

well what's unfortunate about that is that I'm moving Monday, so the tank is getting torn down and this little fella will be in a 5 gallon bucket in the floorboard of my truck for a 3 hour trip :( I think this fish, as well as all of the others, will be fine for the trip, but the healing efforts will have to wait until after the trip

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My 30 gallon planted freshwater - CONSTANTLY CHANGING

here's some picture that are a little better... got some while he was still, but the plants were in the way of most of these :P

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My 30 gallon planted freshwater - CONSTANTLY CHANGING

Ok now he looks more like a male.

__________________
SUCCESS IS MEASURED BY YEARS, NOT MONTHS!!!
220 Tank build
http://www.aquariumforum.com/f15/sta...late-3253.html

yeah that first recent pic was deceiving


for comparison, here's the regular finned Albino Bristlenose in the tank, that I believe to be female







she WILL flare her little spike things by her gills if the other guy gets too close, but I've never seen them get real aggressive towards each other. she usually puts on that little "show" and them swims away

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My 30 gallon planted freshwater - CONSTANTLY CHANGING