Pleco Fin Regrowth?

Question
Hi Karen!

I recently bought a common pleco that was missing the webbing from its left pectoral fin; however, his bone was still left.  Last night, my boyfriend noticed that there was some blood on the bone near the joint, and today, we were amazed to find that the entire bone had fallen off! There isn't any more visible blood on the stump, so I'm hoping that our little fish is okay.  Will his fin grow back? Also, our two goldfish in the same tank have developed ich symptoms - is this related, or did our poor little pleco just have an accident? Thanks for all your help!

--Patsy

Answer
Dear Patsy, Let me first greatly apologize for getting back to you so incredibly late! I certainly didn't mean for it to be that way.

Your pleco has quite an injury, I've never heard of such a bad  injury! There's not much you can do but make sure that his water is clean and that he is getting a good diet. Try to do partial water changes and gravel vacuumings as much as possible, since dirty gravel and water can harbor 'bad' bacteria that could infect his wound further you'd want to keep his tank's gravel well-vacumed with your tank siphon and drain at least 50% of the water every to every other day. This is equivelant to keeping a cut clean of dirt. Another thing you can do is put some melafix in his tank. You can find melafix at most petstores and possibly even wal-mart, it is an all-natural fish medication for bacterial infections and can help fish injuries heal much faster.
Please make sure that this isn't fin rot. Fin rot is a bacterial disease that affects fish kept in dirty tank conditions, it's a disease that eats away the fish's fins and eventually even reaches the body if not kept under control! Fin rot can be seen as a darkened or reddish edging  to the fish's fins and the fins themselves seem to be just rotting away. Treatment is just about the same to what I've just mentioned above. The fact that your goldfish have ich (which appears on a fish as if they had been sprinkled with salt and they may breath heavily and scratch on objects) is also going to make it hard on your pleco to handle the ich treatment needed. What I would try to do is look for the medication called "ICH ATTACK" made by Kordon brand. I've seen it at petsmart before and it is very safe ich treatment medication for sensitive fish like catfish. With your pleco in mind it's pretty difficult to find a medication that won't harm him. But ICH ATTACK will be safe. If you can raise the temperature to about 80-82 F this will speed up the ich's lifecycle and make treatment time faster. With an increase in temperature also increase your aeration with making sure your filter is running at it's best and adding an airstone or two really helps. Some fishkeepers raise the temperature to about 85F and sometimes a little higher. Most fish can stand this fine for a short time and fortunately it is said to destroy ich parasites. Your goldfish may not have the easiest time but they seem to be able to make it through fine with temperatures that high as long as it's temporary.

It's always possible the new pleco brought ich with him (maybe even in the bag water) since he is a new addition. But it's also possible your goldfish may have been stressed which have made them more suceptible to disease from such things as poor water quality, flucuating temperature, or maybe even an uncycled tank. We can never really be for sure.

Your pleco's fin will very likely grow back. He had a bad injury and it will take him a while of course but with good care you'll be amazed at how fish can regenerate damaged or missing fins, scales, skin. I've even had fish grow back gill plates (covers) that were completely missing!

I really hope this helps! And feel free to write with anymore concerns...
Karen~ ((So sorry again for writing back so late!!!))