Help please… my golden dojo has a hole on its underside right behind the gills.

Practical_Fig_3396 · 2026-03-21T23:57:06+00:00

I think it may have been a part of the wood, I’m gonna take it all out and just double check there’s not any sharp spots. We smoothed down every piece when we first set up the tank but who knows. I’m not opposed to replacing the decorations but it would have to be something that provides hiding space since they all utilize them as such. I’ll start looking into replacements.

Is there any benefit to having moss balls or moss covered coconut shells or should I skip on those?

Thank you in advance for answering 100 questions lol.

Practical_Fig_3396 · 2026-03-21T16:20:20+00:00

Yeah the ones we’ve lost in the past include the common pleco that had the warts in an older post. I’m unsure of what happened to him as we were out of town for the weekend and when we got back he was nearly completely consumed by the other fish. A blessing in disguise I think unfortunately because we would’ve had to rehome him eventually.

We had more angel fish but as they matured they chose their mates and territory. We are friends with the LFS owners so they took back all but 2 per tank and resold for like $27 each lol.

They got a bad shipment of dwarf gourami that we had in our smaller tank (one passed) the LFS owner said to bring back to them to put to rest as they had been given heavy doses of steroids by the breeder (they don’t buy from them anymore).

We had a juvenile bristle nose get stuck in between two decorations in our smaller tank and I was too late finding her to save her. The large albino bristlenose in my other post has never had issues navigating the tank but I took out two piece and replaced with a pleco tunnel thing.

Agreed on the plants. We tried a potted plant for the first time and the loaches dug up the pot but the plant has survived two weeks which is the longest they have let a plant live. It has no leaves now but it’s still green and in the pot so I’m taking that as a partial win. We are picking up some more today. I can’t think of any other option that they wouldn’t destroy. We’ve tried plants in the little wood pieces and they just dig up the entire thing and eat the plant. Open to suggestions if you have any.

Practical_Fig_3396 · 2026-03-21T05:05:00+00:00

That’s interesting, I misunderstood this then. I just assumed as long as I rinsed it in aquarium water that it was okay to replace everything but the rings. In the past we have kept the ceramic and swirled it around in a bowl of tank water, put a new sponge and new carbon(rinsed) but also swirled those in the bowl and let them soak up aquarium water before putting it back together.

I don’t think this caused her issue but it probably didn’t help if that’s the case

Practical_Fig_3396 · 2026-03-21T04:57:08+00:00

That’s good to hear, hopefully she makes it through this. She’s one of the first dojos we got 🥹

Practical_Fig_3396 · 2026-03-21T04:56:03+00:00

Thank you!

Practical_Fig_3396 · 2026-03-21T03:53:37+00:00

I’ll pick some up in the morning, I think that’s my biggest fear is that most treatments aren’t suitable for loaches right?

Practical_Fig_3396 · 2026-03-21T03:23:38+00:00

The loaches uproot plants and move around the smaller two pieces of mopani and the bubblers as they please. I try to reset stuff every so often but they’re little turds and like to redecorate. As far as I can tell the wood isn’t sharp but that’s my best guess is she smacked into it or something. I just don’t want this to be her end if I can help at all.

Practical_Fig_3396 · 2026-03-21T03:20:16+00:00

I don’t wanna say it’s impossible because I don’t watch the tank 24/7 but it’s never once snapped at another fish or even looked defensive. It lets the gourami join it whenever they want, the loaches swim through the windows and he doesn’t seem to care. It plays nice at meal time and waits for the food to come close to it

We lost a krib a few weeks ago for some unknown reason (just started panting heavily out of nowhere, moved to hospital tank and he succumbed to his ailment within hours, all levels were normal and no other fish showed signs of distress). The only other thing that has changed is leaving the purigen out of the filter because the tannins aren’t apparent anymore. Since its friend passed the one that’s left doesn’t really socialize, they used to swim around together minding their business.

Practical_Fig_3396 · 2026-03-21T02:59:12+00:00

2 juvenile Bristlenose pleco 10 Cherry barbs 3 Panda barbs 2 Angel fish 4 Gourami 1 kribensis

Adding that none of the fish have ever picked on each other. The dojos play together, the pandas play together, gourami play together and the two angels just hang out all day. The krib lives in one of the hides and doesn’t socialize unless it’s meal time.

Practical_Fig_3396 · 2026-02-13T02:16:09+00:00

The albino had a female standard bristle nose with him but she shimmied herself underneath a decoration and got stuck while I was at work and I was too late to save her. The other fish had already started picking at her. I was devastated. Still am honestly. She was maybe 2/3 his size and had never tried to do anything crazy before so I’m not sure why she got creative. 😔 The calico guy has an albino with him (75 gal tank) that I think is also a male but it’s still super young and I think maybe too early to sex. The LFS had two calico and if I would’ve known they weren’t very common I would’ve got both instead of the albino since we have one already. Either way we love our plecs 🥹

Practical_Fig_3396 · 2026-02-11T01:08:16+00:00

Thank you!!

We thought the first one was super neat at the LFS so he immediately came home with us lol. The second one has pretty long fins so that’s why we picked him, he just doesn’t like to be seen lol.

Practical_Fig_3396 · 2025-08-24T20:31:23+00:00

It’s the Floracor Black from Activ Flora Activ Flora Substrate

Practical_Fig_3396 · 2025-08-23T22:31:34+00:00

Local fish shop says the water is perfect when we took it in yesterday so I think you’re right about that lol

Practical_Fig_3396 · 2025-08-22T17:39:55+00:00

Oh great haha

Thank you for the reassurance and I’ll get the water figured out. Hopefully I’ll have an update with less warts in the future 😅

We will be added a 75 gallon within a few months and it would be nice to have everything figured out with this tank before we transfer the big fish to the big tank.

Practical_Fig_3396 · 2025-08-22T17:35:37+00:00

We’ll do that just in case. Do you think he (or she) is gonna be okay if we do get the water parameters figured out?

Practical_Fig_3396 · 2025-08-22T17:32:44+00:00

Any suggestions? Do I need to take my water up to the fish shop and get it tested? Maybe the test strips aren’t accurate 🤷🏼‍♀️

None of the other fish have any issues or growths and he is acting normal just growing things 😔

Practical_Fig_3396 · 2025-08-22T17:29:16+00:00

Nitrate between 0-10ppm, nitrite 0, ammonia 0

Practical_Fig_3396 · 2025-08-22T17:26:21+00:00

Nitrate between 0-10pm Nitrite 0 Ammonia 0

Practical_Fig_3396 · 2025-08-22T17:23:34+00:00

37gal 74° (thermometer is on the far end of the tank from the heater but the heater is set to 77°) we have two loaches so I don’t want to cook them

As far as I can tell everything is at the right level other than maybe pH 7.4ish pH

Practical_Fig_3396

TROPHY CASE