HELP! Pleco Problem!

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Cloudk

Cloudk

Candiru
MFK Member
Oct 25, 2010
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Swimming in a mountain river
The day before yesturday, I noticed that about 20% of his left side was missing his skin! I think the other, larger pleco rasped it off. Not really deep, looks like it was the top, colored skin. I can still tell when he changes colors. Its weird... Anyways, I took him out and put him in a hospital tank. I put some aquarium salt in. It has a waterfall filter(carbon removed), and been putting melifix in. He hasn't shown any interest in the wafers I recently started feeding them, I know food will help him, so can someone reccomend something for him to eat that's softer? Or any other imput would be great. Has this happened to anyone else? He's a nice laid back guy(victim), just kinda lazes about all day and the other one is kinda an ***hole. I've never heard of plecos rasping eachother. The *** eats wafers, so he isn't starving or anything. I think he's just a d!*k. The injured pleco just raised his sail, and its missing! Just the boney part is left:cry: My poor beloved pleco!:cry::cry: Can someone give advice? Thank you:cry::cry:
 
Oh, and he's acting kinda lathargic. I doubt he feels good, and he's in a much smaller tank, so I was thinking it'd be normal. Anyone agree?
 
As long as he was eating good before i would not worry about him eating just yet.. he is going through stress and also an injury.. he needs time.. and i hope time is on his side and he recovers.. but right now pristine water quality and peace and quiet is the way to go.. and you did well by adding the salt and melafix.. just keep those water changes going and adding medicine.. and hope for the best. Just a little added note.. when you set up hospital tank use the same water from original tank.. then do water change..
 
Plecos can be terrtorial and some species are less tolerant of conspecifics. I don't know how long you've had these two together but this may happen again.
 
Chromobotia said:
Plecos can be terrtorial and some species are less tolerant of conspecifics. I don't know how long you've had these two together but this may happen again.
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Well, I've had them for 2 months or maybe more in my 240G. But their previous owner, said they grew up together w/ him. Their other tank w/ him was 100gal w/ 5 adult tiger oscars, and a knifefish. I would think if they were gonna have issues, it would've been in a crowded tank. Or maybe he was to worried about the other tankmates too much to care about territory. Idk. But I'm betting it'll be hard to adopt out a very large pleco.
 
Cloudk said:
Well, I've had them for 2 months or maybe more in my 240G. But their previous owner, said they grew up together w/ him. Their other tank w/ him was 100gal w/ 5 adult tiger oscars, and a knifefish. I would think if they were gonna have issues, it would've been in a crowded tank. Or maybe he was to worried about the other tankmates too much to care about territory. Idk. But I'm betting it'll be hard to adopt out a very large pleco.
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Often fish will exhibit less aggression in a crowded setting. This is one reason why people keep African cichlids in larger numbers.
 
Are they common plecos? I have noticed that sometimes they can be rude.

I would see if the hurt one recovers, and then evict the a-hole.
 
mshill90 said:
Are they common plecos? I have noticed that sometimes they can be rude.

I would see if the hurt one recovers, and then evict the a-hole.
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Idk what kind they are. They look a lot different, but similar coloring. The longer one(***), is more slender, torpedo shaped, and more striped. The other one is slightly shorter, spotted, more chunky looking, and his head is really wide. Both are brown and black, and can change from lighter to darker. They both have the armored, ancienty look. I'm pretty sure they're different kinds, but I can't really find anything. Eviction is most likely in his future.
 
Glad melifix is so cheap, yet works so well. Just got 16oz, and free shipping for $7.09. Got an 8oz before, stuff goes faster than you'd think. Hopefully the 16oz will last awhile. Just read an article saying that melifix has killed someone's fish. Everytime he uses it, the fish died. Idk if it was fw or sw, didn't specify. Has anyone had this experince? Worked great for my tiger oscar. After her stay in the hospital tank, her bizarre behavior stopped(id guess some kind of infection), and her bad wounds healed w/in a week. I'll keep using it. But has anyone else had this happen?
 
No offense, but most of us think melafix is junk.
 
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