Pleco Is Bloated - Help

[bartidge]

Hi-

Here's my 3" Clown pleco all bloated... not sure what's wrong with him/her...

his/her scales are not protruding outward as would be indicating a fungal infection... scales and fins look very healthy actually - color is good and fins show no fraying or deterioration typically seen with a sick fish... could this be a pregnant female??? At 3" I thought this fish was too small to breed. I do have another standard pleco in the tank (not a clown pleco...) that's over 8" long... is it possible he may have bred with this little clowny?

Can anyone tell me what's wrong with it and what to do?

Thx.

[MonoSebaelover]

That doesn't really look like pregnant, from what I have seen of Plecos preg (had a 3 some of Bristlenose) she never got that fat. Is she still eating okay and otherwise acting normal? What else other than the plec is in with her? I think maybe if you could put her in a hospital tank and maybe add just a little bit of salt and see if that clears it up. Other than that I don't really know. That is very interesting. Sorry I couldn't be more help but I'm sure others will. Hope this helps.

[bartidge]

Alas... she has passed on as of this morning... maybe she was all blocked up...

I was going to try the hospital tank this morning with some epsoms but oh well...

[MonoSebaelover]

I'm really sorry to hear that. She seemed like maybe something was blocking her digestive tract or something. Again sorry to hear about. Right now I am working with a fish that has the opposite problem of being skin and bones (I rescued him from a lfs for a cheap price-so will see what happens). Well sorry to hear that.

[valerie]

Most plecos are wild caught and come with internal problems. Its most likely that your pleco has internal parasites or some other internal infection.

Its best to treat all fancy plecos for internal parasites in a Q tank before hand.