My Pleco Has White Patches All Over!! Please Help!!

[clarissasjh]

Please help!!
I've had this pleco for 3 weeks now, it was fine the first few weeks I got it.
I came back from a weekend vacation last night and found it like this, with these white patches.. The white patches seem to be increasing slightly everytime I see it(my pleco doesn't appear at the front of the tank very often) and I'm really panicking.

I'm not sure but I've heard their bodies might turn lighter colored depending on their environment? I have a white sand substrate could this be the cause??
Or is it a spreading fungal infection that need immediate attention?? But the white patches aren't raised/bumpy...
Maybe my pH level/temperature is too high for the pleco??

I also realized that a tear in the dorsal fun occurred overnight. I've seen my catfish swimming into the pleco's resting spot afew times, making the pleco raise its dorsal fin. Could it have caused a fin rot from the stress?? But from what I remembered, fin rot starts at the very end of the fins/tail and this doesn't seem like it...
I'm not sure whether it may also be caused by other fishes picking on it but my pleco is the largest fish in the tank and pretty quick moving as well. Most of the time it's just peacefully at the wall of the tank if not hiding in the bunch of java ferns.

I can't seem to find any more details online, please help! I have attached pictures below.

Water parameters:
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 10
pH 7.6
Temperature : 27 Celsius

Below : You can see the tear in the dorsal fin when it is fully opened.

 

[Dis]

Start with a large water change and keep the water really clean.

Is it fighting with another fish or other pleco?

 

[clarissasjh]

Start with a large water change and keep the water really clean.

Is it fighting with another fish or other pleco?

I just did a 50% water change about an hour ago.
There's only 1 pleco in my tank and the only contact that I've seen is with my 13cm clarias catfish which is really active and tends to swim into the pleco's territory sometimes. The pleco will normally shift its position a little and raise its fin that's all

 

[Dis]

It does look like fighting, but I could be wrong. I know when plecos fight eachother their skin scrapes against eachother and get wounds like yours has.

Maybe someone else can chime in for you

 

[clarissasjh]

It does look like fighting, but I could be wrong. I know when plecos fight eachother their skin scrapes against eachother and get wounds like yours has.

Maybe someone else can chime in for you

But i only have 1 pleco in my tank so i don't think it's caused by fighting with their same kind..

Hopefully someone else who has encountered this issue before will be able to tell me what's going on..
Thanks anyway!

 

[clarissasjh]

Help!! Anyone??
My pleco is starting to have these tiny white spots on the body... I'm not sure whether it's ick or maybe it's just smaller pieces of sand substrate stuck on its body... Please help!! I really want to treat my pleco asap but I don't wanna add the wrong medication..
Can anyone tell me what's happening to my pleco??

 

[kno4te]

Looks like the beggings of ich or sand too from the stress, whatever it is.

Move to a qt tank. Add some salt 1tsp per gallon and raise the heat to 86 degrees slowly. About a degree an hour. Keep like this and monitor. It should get better in a little over 10 days.

 

[Dis]

The small white spots do look like it.

In the first pics uou posted I could only see all the patches.

Ick is an easy cure, lots of options online

 

[Sweepicus]

I have had a pleco do the same thing and it ended up being ich induced from new water condition since mine was new as well, mixed with fighting with another one of my plecos and hitting against each other and ornaments in my tank. Pretty much it stressed him out really bad. I just hospital tanked him for about 8 days and he was all better.

 

[eddiegunks]

If it is ick Moving it wont help. You need to treat the entire tank. Raise the temp to 87 degrees F