Help! My pleco's sick :(

Hi All.

We are new to fishkeeping, i must say that upfront.

My wife and i were bought a pleco by a friend who has had several for many years, and we have fell in love with the little guy.

He is about 4 - 5" long i think and we have had him for about 3 months.

Over the last 2-3 weeks we have found some weirdness going on.

Firstly he went patchy. we took him to the fish shop who said it may just be markings or stress. A few days later a growth appeared on his head, reading general fish forums the consensus was that it would likely be a burn/injury as he zoomed about the tank.

We were told also it could be fungal from the fish shop and are using ICH/Fungal medicene at the moment but i am not at all convinced by this.

However now it is getting far bigger and it really does not look good at all. I guess worst case it is a cancer, but we just need to know if there is anything we can do or if it is something how we treat it. He seems much the same behaviourly as usual, and seems to be eating at night fine.

HELPPPP!

Keep on with your ich meds but ask the shop if it will steralize the good bacteria in the tank causing a tank cycle with ammonia and nitrites. If it does you had better do some water changes once or twice a day with a suitable water treatment added.

By the photos it looks like an old puncture injury possibly done by another fish before you bought it. The raised up part is proud flesh growing in and will after the injury is healed inside make a callous and eventually scar tissue.

What you need to be careful of is a fungal infection getting into it and that's where your ich meds is probably helping.

If you see any evidence of fluffy stuff growing on that injury I would advise catching it and daubing with a cotton tip some Bettadine or Iodine based application. Blow on it for a minute or two to try and dry it and return the fish to the tank. Don't worry they can last hours outside of water as long as the whole fish doesn't dry out so a few mins is fine. The medication should kill fungus dead with one application usually.

If you don't have one already I would advise buying an API master test kit. It is one of the more simpler ones to use and will tell you if you have any ammonia (bad), nitrites (really bad) or nitrates (ok up to about level 20 at a pinch). If you have any of those, do 20% water changes to the tank, once or twice daily until it settles.

To measure the water in tank, measure length in centimeters x width x actual water height in the tank and divide that by 1000 and it will give you liters. If you are a feet and inches person you're on your own lol. I don't know how to do them gut a google might turn up how to measure volume. Then do a 20% water change of that volume.