Common Pleco

kayla

kayla

weeeeee!
Jul 24, 2005
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I bought a 1" common pleco from petsmart. It obviously has fin rot and was in a tank where it seems like fish were taking chunks out of him, I just had to save him. I've been trying salt but I was wondering if something like melafix or something like that would be more sufficient? Can you even use that on plecs? Any suggestions would be helpful.
 
kayla said:
I bought a 1" common pleco from petsmart. It obviously has fin rot and was in a tank where it seems like fish were taking chunks out of him, I just had to save him. I've been trying salt but I was wondering if something like melafix or something like that would be more sufficient? Can you even use that on plecs? Any suggestions would be helpful.
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If you can catch him/her and only the fin is damaged. hold it belly up and with a qtip put son iodine on it. them dip the tail only in a glass of tank water to rinse the excess off before putting it back in the tank. DO NOT GET ANY IN THE GILLS. or just try some ick / fin rot potion from the store. They usually fix the problem but can hurt other fish in your tank and kill all your snails.
 
Dangerdoll said:
With plecos, being that they are scaleless, I would think the salt is doing more harm than good....
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:idea: didnt even think of that :rolleyes:
 
Low dose salt on plecos is fine for treatment durations. Long term exposure is not a great idea. It will take awhile to grow the fin back, and sometimes if the fin rays rae damaged the fins won't ever grow back, but that doesn't mean the end of the pleco. Keep the salt level at 1 tsp per gallon and do water changes every few days. Keeping the heat turned up to at least 80F will probably also be helpful and make sure that no fungus or bacteria gets into the wound.
 
Thanks everyone! :thm:
 
are you planning on upgrading your tank eventually? commons reach about 2 feet long.
 
Melafix has done a great job rebuilding fins on my pleco. It doesn't seem to totally rid the fish of the fin rot, but it does a surprisingly good job of treating the wound and helping the fin grow back.
 
wataugachicken said:
are you planning on upgrading your tank eventually? commons reach about 2 feet long.
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i got my eyes on a 180gal :D
 
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