Pleco with res growth on face/nose

[Turtlemom18]

Help! My 8 year old pleco has this red growth on his face/nose. He has been healthy and has never had any issues before. He lives in a 75 gallon tank with 2 Mississippi map turtles and they have no growths or issues at this time. I included a couple of pictures. What is this and how can I treat it? I don’t want to remove anyone from their home for fear of stressing them out and making the situation worse. I’m concerned how to treat the fish without harming the turtles.

[Andy Sager]

It appears to be an injury by the nostril. It may have been caused by a turtle bite or from trying to back out of a place and got it's face caught. There's not much you can do for this past making sure the water is extra clean and let the wound heal on it's own. This would be better done in a separate quarantine tank so that the turtles can't mistake this for some food and attack the area. If you do not have a separate tank to isolate the fish in, you can use a tank divider so that the turtles are on one side and the pleco on the other. The key tho is clean water.

[Turtlemom18]

I don’t feel like it’s a wound because it was smaller and has progressively gotten bigger. Here’s a better picture. It really looks like a growth to me but from my research I can’t find anything that would cause this on a pleco.

[Andy Sager]

Originally Posted by Turtlemom18

I don’t feel like it’s a wound because it was smaller and has progressively gotten bigger. Here’s a better picture. It really looks like a growth to me but from my research I can’t find anything that would cause this on a pleco.

If that's the case, I suggest contacting Dr Iske Larkin or anyone that handles fish diseases at the University of Florida's Small animal hospital in Gainesville, FL. The Florida Fish Farmers Association use the U of F for their medical issues. This could be a respiratory tumor or just an odd growth. On another site, someone with a common pleco also had a growth, a slightly different color than your fish's, coming from the same nostril and it turned out to be a carcinoma. Needless to say, the cure costs were well more than the replacement cost of the fish. I can't say that they can identify it without a biopsy but they would be your best bet unless you have an aquatic vet local to you.

[Colin_T]

If it's been getting bigger slowly over time, it's probably a tumour. There's no cure for tumours in fish but some vets will do procedures on fish and charge you a lot of money. Most fish die while under anesthetic.

[Turtlemom18]

Okay thank you. I’m assuming the best thing to do is to just let him live out his life as I’m not going to have surgery or anything done. Was just making sure it wasn’t like fungus or something I could easily treat.