Plecos abnormal mouth (Warning, graphic pics)

[DonnaM]

This guy arrived at my place with a turtle needing to be rehomed. The previous owners thought it had some food stuck in its mouth and didnt realise it was so abnormal. The growth appeared to increase in size during the weeks it was here, but didnt stop the pleco from being able to eat. (I didnt see it eat, but it kept pooing plenty!)

[DonnaM]

[DonnaM]

(Sorry about all the posts, but I cant seem to post more then one photo at a time without losing everything when I go to copy another photo! :roll: )

[DonnaM]

[DonnaM]

[DonnaM]

[Stella]

Ew, that is crazy!

I wonder what it might be?

Tumours in fish are usually benign and caused by a virus. Maybe he sucked a tumour on another fish and caught a whole lot?

Weird weird weird.

[DonnaM]

He was alone with the 2 yr turtle. Turtle seems fine...tho he began to try and bite at the tumour so I quickly seperated them.

Yes Stella, very weird! Jennifer sent photos to people who may know if anything could be done, but it wasnt possible or realistic to save him.

[Jennifer]

Tumours in fish are usually benign and caused by a virus.

That is exactly what the consensus was Stella. Without testing it is hard to say for certain but it was thought to be a benign tumour with likely viral origin. Due to its location and very invasive nature it would have a very poor prognosis.

[Adrienne]

I googled it and this is what I came up with. It could have started off as the image in the first link perhaps:

http://www.fishlore.com/fishforum/fresh ... sease.html

http://www.tropicalfishkeeping.com/trop ... ing-46139/

[Stella]

I had a kokopu with a single tumour on the inside of the lip. Smooth, not puffy like this. Eventually it got red during feeding time and started to get in the way, but then suddenly it was gone - thankfully did not spread to other fish!

I wonder if somehow a single viral tumour on its mouth got rasped and spread that way, like a kid who picks warts and winds up with them all over their hands.

It may be very slow growing, giving the little guy plenty more time before it starts causing problems (he looks beautifully healthy!) but Jennifer is probably right.

(Donna, these photos you post of diseased/damaged animals you receive are fascinating, a really good awareness thing)

[DonnaM]

Thanks Stella. Good to share these things

Adrienne that first link was interesting in that it had a turtle doing the mating dance with the pleco. Exactly as this turtle was doing... I wonder how much impact the turtle biting/picking at the sores had on its condition before I even got them? It was a lovely looking pleco. As the mouth got worse, the pleco one day started to look very slugggish and reasonably unresponsive to anything.