Pleco Injury

[rebelliondog206]

I have a pleco that is about 13.5 inches long. I recently brought him inside due to the cold coming. He is in a 55 gallon tank.

I noticed yesterday evening that he has a sore about the size of a nickel on the underside of the body, way back down the tail. The skin is gone. I notice nothing else and fish looks and acts normal.

With no other visible injuries, I can only guess that he scraped himself on a rock in the tank.........I am removing the rocks. Water parameters are ok.....though I am about to do a change.

Is there anything I should treat the water with to help along the healing? There are other fish in the tank (the permanent residents.....Africans with a couple of Severums).

I really don't want to lose this fish, considering the size and age. He is over 13" and about 6 years old.

I was going to post a picture, but I am unable to upload one. I will try again in a while.

[fshfrk]

He might have burned himself on the heater. I would just keep a eye on the injury. I have had good luck with binox. good luck.

[Dow]

My little brother had a rough rock in his tank that scraped the belly of the pleco raw. It was horrible. I just made sure the water was clean and took the rough rock out. He was perfectly fine in a few days and it started healing over. Keep an eye on it, keep the water clean. I put a few tea tree oils in there.

[rebelliondog206]

Update.....and thanks for the responses:

The sore is healing quickly......water temps are back up outside, so I put the pleco back out. Now, he can stretch out a little. No heater and no rough rocks out there.

All the goldfish seem very active, guess they are happy to not be so cold. There are even mollies that survived.

I lost a couple of black moors.....thought they would tolerate the cold (lowest I saw was 48F). They were medium size and healthy, it seemed, before the cold snap.