Pleco sore patch?

[David O]

My bristlenose pleco has a pale patch on head. I'm concerned it's a sore or beginning of infection. Can anyone advise?

 

[David O]

He also has been swinging tail and moving more actively. Is this restless or erratic swimming?

 

[Colin_T]

Hi and welcome to the forum

How long have the tank been set up for?
How long have you had the fish?
How long has the fish had the wound for?
What other fish are in the tank?
Have you added anything new in the last 2 weeks?
How often do you do water changes and how much water do you change?
Do you gravel clean the substrate when you do a water change?
Do you dechlorinate the new water before adding it to the tank?

 

[David O]

Hi there.

Thanks for reply.

Tank is 50L but only 80% full and has been well established for >4 years. There are many 15-20? fancy guppies (and fry in separate plastic chamber), 3 Cory cats, 2 zebra nerite snails, 2 diamond tetra, and the bristlenose Pleco. All been doing well for many many months. There are also some ordinary aquarium snails and various live plants.

Water was changed recently at 50% following treatment for camallanus with levamisole 2.5mg/L. This has been effective as many white threads seen released from pleco and guppies but sadly I lost 3 guppies and a 4 year old pictus catfish died. The water become very cloudy. All new water always gets API stress coat plus conditioner/ dechlorinator. But ordinarily water is not changed very regularly as been using Easy Balance and topping up water lost to evaporation ever month or so. I then do 25% change every few months. But the filter cleaned and gravel vacuumed regularly.

I wonder if pleco scraped head on plastic nursery chamber, otherwise I'm concerned that he is stressed and got an ulcer of some type. I don't want it to get infected. I wonder what treatment might be needed other than adding more stress coat, which I have done.

Thanks again

 

[Colin_T]

If the water went cloudy when you used levamisole then you overdosed the tank and that is probably what killed the fish. It could also be the massive build up of nutrients reacting with the levamisole that pushed the fish past their maximum stress limit and caused their death.

--------------------------
Fish live in a soup of microscopic organisms and they are fine with that as long as the disease organisms remain in very low numbers. If you don't do enough water changes then the microscopic organisms build up into very high numbers and affect the fish.

You should be doing a 50-75% (75% is better than 50%) water change every week to dilute nutrients and disease organisms. If you only top up an aquarium, you leave all the nutrients and diseases behind in the water and they eventually build up and kill fish.

Because you only do a small water change every few months, I would suggest you start off by doing a 10-20% water change every day for a week. Then increase it to 30% every day for a week. Then do a 50% water change every day for a week. Then do a 75% water change every day for a week. After that you should do a 50-75% water change once a week.
Gravel clean the substrate every time you do a water change.
Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it is added to the tank.

The water changes will dilute disease organisms in the water and the fish should be able to heal itself without any need for medications. But you need to clean the tank conditions up now otherwise it could become infected and all the medication in the world is not going to help a sick fish in a dirty tank.