Hi! I'm having some issues with my common pleco. He's been beautiful and growing for a year now, and I love him very much (though he does not feel the same lol, I am merely the lowly food source). However the past couple weeks odd things have been happening. At first he turned pale for a couple days. I anxiously watched him for signs of other illness, and eventually saw a small white spot on his belly once he turned to normal colour and assumed it was ick. I treated him with the ick meds and the spot went away and I breathed a sigh of relief. However not long after, he started secreting this weird, whispy mucousy stuff. It's translucent and appears to be coming from his skin. He's been back to normal colour for the most part though he did turn a bit pale a couple days ago but I think that may have been due to the water change I had to do from the ick med cycle. Has anyone seen this before and is this a problem that I need to be concerned about? Is there something I can do to help my favourite fish if there is a problem? Or do I have to just wait and pray that he pulls through?
There are several diseases that cause an excess of mucus. Chilodonella, Ichthybodo necatrix and Trichodina are the three "parasitic" ones I know of and most plausible I think. Only thing is those can be cured by Ich-meds. I'd do another course of Ich-treatment. If that doesn't work it could be bacterial after all.
Treat with a antibacterial / antibiotic med. Those will affect filterbacteria btw. To be honest by your description I suspect it to be a parasite as mentioned. Only thing that puzzles me is the anti Ich med didn't work.
During the water change I swapped out a plant because the one I had was gross and dying. Normally at the store I go to they keep plants completely separate from fish, but the day I went they had goldfish in there. Their gills were super swollen but the lady there told me she had just completely changed the water so I crossed my fingers and hoped that they were just having trouble with the over oxygenated water, since I could see the air bubbles on their scales. I'm thinking something may have hitchhiked its way into my tank and since water changes always stress my fish a little perhaps he just swapped one disease for another. Does that sound possible?
