External parasites on FW fish?

[Delphinus]

Ok, another first for me. I have no idea what to do because I'm useless in the FW domain. If this were a SW fish, I'd be dipping the fish in FW to see if this "thing" would fall off.

Anyhow, I have no idea how long this has been like this, because this fish would *never* come out into the open. Had it not been that I am taking it's current tank down, and had to remove the rock it liked to hide under (in order to catch his tankmates), I wouldn't even have noticed this today.

First of all, the fish in question is a bristlenose plec. Although I'm not sure if the ID is correct since there are no "bristles" on the nose. Have had this fish for several years now.

First thing I noticed was that the tail ("caudal fin") seemed somewhat small, so I was suspecting fin rot. In trying to photograph the tail, however, I noticed something else. A red dot on the tail. It looks like some kind of barnacle or something like that, except red in colour. If this was a plant, it would be a "scale insect."

Any ideas what it is, and more importantly, what do I do about it?

By lucky happenstance, the fish is now on his (or her) own in the tank. Since I am taking the tank down I moved the other tankmates over to their new home today, and that's how I basically noticed this whole situation in the first place. So treatment in isolation is .. well .. basically pretty easily done.

[Rahim101]

The best people to help are the guys at Gold Aquariams.

Shoot "Albert Dao" and Pm with the pics or a link to this thread...I'm sure he can help. Looks like fin rot to me.....

[Dale D]

Hard to tell by the pictures, but, could it be a fish louse?
I've seen alot of them on goldfish, but, they are usually more of a brown colour.
If it is a louse you should be able to remove it by scraping it off with a fingernail. That's what I have always done.

[Delphinus]

Well, it is brown, so maybe that's a possibility.

I added some Melafix to her tank tonight, we'll see what that does for her. (I guess she's a female BNP after all.) Didn't have time tonight to try catching her to see if I can flick it, whatever it is, off. Tomorrow maybe.

Have had a few suggestions that maybe it's either fungal, or maybe some kind of secondary thing from having the loaches pick on her. I'm disappointed if that's the case, I've never known my loaches to be mean and I really want to hang onto them, but if they're gonna cause me problems then I don't know what. I got a better look at her tail tonight though, she was flaring it open and it's not as bad as I first thought. It is definitely a little ragged on the edge, I can't really tell if it's fin rot or chew marks. Man I hope it's not chew marks..

[Delphinus]

Wait a minute. I just noticed something on my own pictures that I didn't clue into before. The first photo is of her right hand side, the second and third photos are off her left hand side. This brown dot is thus a through-and-through on her tail (ie. on both sides). Does that rule out the possibility of a parasite such as a louse?

[fishoholic]

To me it looks like a scrape/cut of some sort. If this is the case the melafix will help heal the tail in about a week. It sort of looks like she got her tail caught or stuck on something and ended up hurting herself pulling free. I can't say for sure but I hope the melafix works for you, it has helped my FW fish in the past.