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Bristlenose Pleco with white patches that fade in/out over time

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28K views 11 replies 8 participants last post by  julieabrown64  
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#1 ·
I've had a single BN pleco in my 29g (76*F, 6.6ph, gh/kh 1) for a little over a year now and he has these white patches with white bumps in them randomly throughout his body. The bumps look like ich, but I dont believe they are because they stay confined to the white patches and none of the other fish have any symptoms. The tank has had the same occupants for the past year so its not contagious to the tetras or single guppy. He acts completely normal so I never bothered with figuring out what was exactly wrong with him until now. I want to move him to my 180 gallon to be with the 3 female BNs but I do not want to introduce anything that could infect the females. I searched around the forum and google and couldn't really find anything that was spot on to my pleco. Body fungus was about the only thing that kind of resembled my pleco so I figured I would ask someone who knows more than me here Any help will be appreciated. Thanks!

edit - here are pics... you can see the patches on his back that have white bumps in them, the bumps run down toward the eyes and one patch near his tail. Sometimes he only has a few smaller patches, they seem to be random.


 
#4 ·
Mine does that too. It is nothing at all to worry about. It is just normal colors that come and go depending on the mood of the fish. I have a bristlenose exactly like yours,
and as long as there is no itching (rubbing on tank objects), and the water quality is good then there is nothing to worry about. :)
 
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#6 ·
Thats great to hear! He seems completely happy and never shows any sign of stress. He's actually quite aggressive when it comes to defending his algae wager :red_mouth He has much more of a personality than the females in my 180 :D
 
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#5 ·
It could very well be stress related. Sometimes they seem to flare up after a water change. I don't buffer this tank very much with crushed coral like I do my 180g so the pH drops from 7.0 out of the tap to about 6.6 in the tank. My water has 0 hardness out of the tap so without any CC buffering it, it crashes to a 5.8/6.0. I buffer my 180G so it stays at a constant 7.0 like the tap water but I found it was a lot trickier(?) to keep the 29G stable at 7.0 so I settled with just one tablespoon of CC which gave me a stable 6.6. If the spots are caused by stress, I bet it has to do with this.

Then again.... I only change the water every two weeks in this tank since it has a very low bio load with only 5 tetras, a guppy, and the pleco. So the pH swing doesn't happen very often, I would think if the spots were caused by the stress of a W/C they would disappear by the time the next W/C came around.
 
#7 ·
Ok. Glad I helped.
It should be fine to move him to the 180 with the females as long as they are all healthy.
Good luck. :)
 
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#11 ·
Nothing to worry about, except when you put him in your 180 gal with 3 females expect to need another tank for the kids. And 3 females could wear him out, causing more stress and more patches. But I bet he will be a happy guy for a while.
 
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