Working at a big box store that had less than stellar quality control for fish that were getting shipped out to the stores, I've seen a lot of parasites and diseases, but I've never seen anything like this.
My friend posted some pictures in a Facebook group asking if anyone had seen anything like this and how she should treat for it. Her recently acquired (my understanding is someone gave it to her) pleco had a weird spot near his mouth that within a short time after her noticing it (less than a day) turned into a hole. The wound left looks clean and not irritated. She's treating the tank with Melafix for a week to keep any infection out and hopefully speed up the healing. Pleco is still acting normal, eating and swimming fine, its been three days and the wound is getting smaller. Last night she said she found a very small, white, roundish fuzzy thing in the tank while gravel vacuuming that she thinks might have been the parasite. Who knows though. No other fish are infected.
I thought maybe lice at first, but it was only one fish and one spot and I've never seen a lice wound look like that. Anyway, all seems to be good, but this has me really curious. Has anyone ever seen anything like this? If so, should she treat the tank with some sort of anti-parasite just to be sure, or is just the Melafix for healing ok?
Parasite thing
A few hours later
My friend posted some pictures in a Facebook group asking if anyone had seen anything like this and how she should treat for it. Her recently acquired (my understanding is someone gave it to her) pleco had a weird spot near his mouth that within a short time after her noticing it (less than a day) turned into a hole. The wound left looks clean and not irritated. She's treating the tank with Melafix for a week to keep any infection out and hopefully speed up the healing. Pleco is still acting normal, eating and swimming fine, its been three days and the wound is getting smaller. Last night she said she found a very small, white, roundish fuzzy thing in the tank while gravel vacuuming that she thinks might have been the parasite. Who knows though. No other fish are infected.
I thought maybe lice at first, but it was only one fish and one spot and I've never seen a lice wound look like that. Anyway, all seems to be good, but this has me really curious. Has anyone ever seen anything like this? If so, should she treat the tank with some sort of anti-parasite just to be sure, or is just the Melafix for healing ok?
Parasite thing
A few hours later
