Odd marks on my Lents

[ryansmith83]

I PM'd this a month or so ago to Jeremy but I think he's busy/not around much right now.

I've had my lents for several months now. They eat well, act well, and show good colors, but they have white markings on their flanks and near their tail. They each had a couple here and there when I got them, but now they're everywhere. I honestly do not think it's HITH because the marks are not near the head/face or lateral line. They tend to be on the caudal peduncle and below the lateral line on the bottom half of the body. They look blueish-purplish-white up close and appear to actually be nicks in the skin.

My first thought was that they were fighting or scraping themselves on tank decorations but they don't seem to be healing. Then it occured to me that it could be my rhino pleco? It seems worse on one than on the other.

I don't have any recent pictures but here's an older picture. You can see the white spots here. Curiously, the marks are no longer in these same places... so I guess they healed but appeared elsewhere.

Have you ever seen anything like that on your pikes? Is it possible this is HITH? I have the fish in with a male Saxatilis pike and a big Hoplarchus psittacus, and neither of them show any marks on their face or body. It's only on the lents.

 

[clgkag]

It almost looks like some kind of wound. Is there an area in the tank that they have to 'squeeze' into that maybe has a sharp spot they could be gettting against? They could fit in before, but now they are hitting it as they work themselves in? Just throwing out some guesses.

I talked to Jeremy a couple weeks ago, he is working 2 jobs and just busy with life. All is well with him.

 

[ryansmith83]

There is driftwood in the tank, and a big fake log. I never see them go in any of it though. They are mostly out in the open all the time. One of the pikes shows it much more than the other one, and it's only on one side of his body. Either he's scratching up against the same driftwood over and over again at night, or something else is going on.

 

[Sarah88]

maybe the pleco is sucking on them... though this is usually an issue with more lazy fish that just lay on the bottom like certain types of bichirs, seems unlikely with pikes as active as yours are...