Help! Pleco with open wounds!

tmtpowers said:
Thanks again for the advice!!!

Now I just have one more question (at least for now LOL) when will I stop the melafix treatments and and put the carbon back in? How to I get him ready (when the time is right if he lives) to be put in the large tank? What would be indications that he is ready?
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When the wounds heal and he is in 100% fresh water and looking good, you can move him.

BTW (I'm adding a 4th here LOL) what does OTS stand for? Sorry new to the whole online fish world :P
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Sorry, I should have explained. OTS is "Old Tank Syndrom". Its what happens to the chemistry in a tank that does not get enough water changes.

There are natural processes that go on in the tank that produce something we cannot measure in the hobby: DOCs (Dissolved Organic Compounds). We have no way of testing for DOCs because the "ingredients" list is astronomical. This is why changing the water is so important. It's not just the nitrates we need to remove.

Now, if the water is not changed the DOCs increase, so does the TDS (Total Dissolved Solids). The water thickens -- imagine jello that is just starting to set. That's what it's like to the fish in there. Setting jello. Because the water is so "thick" the fish can no longer regulate their bodies (osmoregularity) and respond to any changing conditions: temperature, water changes, stress -- anything that causes any physical or mental stress and they cannot deal with it.

If you take a new fish and put it in an OTS tank with older fish that are used to the water, the new fish will die -- immediately. BOOM! Evetually the older fish will die as well. That part you've seen.

Here's an article by RTR on it. He explains it in more detail:

http://www.thepufferforum.com/articles/small/ots.html

Roan
 
Thanks for the explanation!

Now let me make sure I understand what I am suppose to do:
Once the pleco's wounds heal and the gray patches are gone, I should slowly decrease the melafix to allow him to adjust to the water over a period of time correct? As for the salt, is it not a good idea to allow plecos to live in salt? I have always kept my tanks at .08% Currently that is what he is sitting at as well as the main fish tank.
 
i think its wonderful that you are trying hard to save the poor plecos life.

Kudos to Roan and all that have offered such wonderful advice.keep up the great work.
 
tmtpowers said:
Thanks for the explanation!
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Welcome :)

Now let me make sure I understand what I am suppose to do:
Once the pleco's wounds heal and the gray patches are gone, I should slowly decrease the melafix to allow him to adjust to the water over a period of time correct?
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Yes

As for the salt, is it not a good idea to allow plecos to live in salt? I have always kept my tanks at .08% Currently that is what he is sitting at as well as the main fish tank.
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Freshwater fish do not need salt added to the tank, nor should salt be used on a long term basis.

Remember that explanation I gave you on DOCs and stuff? Salt actually adds to the problem and it will also affect their ability to osmoregulate. On a short term basis for medicinal purposes salt has its uses.

Using salt all the time is a very old aquaria myth and one that just refuses to die. Fish that are said to "need" salt -- mollies, livebearers et al -- really do not need salt at all. They need hard water. You don't make water harder by adding salt to it. All you do is make it thicker. Take a water softener -- the type you add to your house to "soften" your tap water. What it does is replace the magnesium and calcium ions with salt ions -- ergo "softer" water. That's not what you want to accomplish, that's for sure.

To make it hard you need to add calcium, magnesium, potassium and a whole lot of other "iums" :)

Here's an article on the salt myth:


All Salt Was Not Created Equal, by RTR

Most fish do not need their water harder, or softer or whatever, except for difficult species that you intend to breed. They've been kept for generation in regular water and are far removed from whatever water their ancestors lived in.

Roan
 
Roan, you said that plecos are tough creatures and you weren't quite sure why they, loaches and cories go first...Could it be because the water level that they live in would receive the least exchange with the open atmosphere as well as containing the highest amounts of undisolved solids in the tank....Water density would be higher at their level and thus, although appearing less able to cope, they would actually be coping better because the water chemistry at the time of their death would be worse than that of their upper dwelling denizens?
 
DeputyChiefJR said:
Roan, you said that plecos are tough creatures and you weren't quite sure why they, loaches and cories go first...Could it be because the water level that they live in would receive the least exchange with the open atmosphere as well as containing the highest amounts of undisolved solids in the tank....Water density would be higher at their level and thus, although appearing less able to cope, they would actually be coping better because the water chemistry at the time of their death would be worse than that of their upper dwelling denizens?
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I would say so, yes.

However, I didn't say I wasn't sure why they went first -- you pretty much summed that up -- I said I wasn't sure as to why HIS pleco didn't go first. That's one really tough pleco!

Roan
 
Hey hows he doing? is he getting any better? I think it is so great to see you trying so hard.
 
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