Rescue pleco. New to fishkeeping and need help identifying aliments.

Mjneal

New Member
Feb 28, 2022
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Hi there. My sister and I rescued a Pleco from our friend. He's been re-homed due to people not understanding how large common Plecos get. We don't know anything about fish but are determined to do right by this little guy. We've done a bunch of research on him and we know he'll need a larger tank but for right now we've used part of our tax returns to set him up with a 75 gallon home, it's the best we can do on short notice.

I need help identifying what's wrong with Hank. He has what I think are old injuries, ammonia burns maybe from what I'm reading? But he has a bunch of nastiness on his stomach and around his gills that I don't see on photos of healthy Pleco's. My local fish shops are all salt water based though I will make a trip out there soon to ask for advice. I picked up a few things at Petsmart while grabbing his tank and equipment. One of the employees recommended "Melafix" and "Primafix" as a general treatment. I picked those up but I'd like more opinions before I use them.

Thank you guys greatly for any help you can offer. I've put the best photos I could get of Hank into an imgur album as this site tells me the images are too large even when compressed. I've also included one of his old home the day we picked him up. The poor guy apparently lived in there for 10 years! This little guy is tough that's for sure. I want to be sure he gets healthy given the awful life he's had so far.

Imgur Album