So I have this big pleco and about mid-day today I noticed he had an eye issue, its like all white, could someone checkout this picture and let me know what it is and how to treat it?

http://img13.imageshack.us/my.php?image=img7138x.jpg

Although, i couldn't open the file, i had confronted the same case twice in the past with 2 of my plecos, that had developped whitish films around their eyes.

In general terms it could most probably be a protozoan infection (Chilodonella) or a parasite infection. Chilodonella affects mainly the area between the head and the dorsal fin, so if your fish has this it will most likely develop whitish films on its head too. Fish affected with chilodonella hold their fins close to the body and make scraping movements. Treatment for this is trypaflavine or malachite green. Use long duration baths and raise the temperature to 28 deg Celsius. The tank can be considered free from parasites after 5 days at a temp of 28 deg Celsius.

If it is a bacterial infection it could be treated with gentamicin.

That is if you have correctly described the area as an opaque film. If has more of a cotton-like appearence it could be fungus.

The truth is that cloudy eyes are symptoms of different kinds of infection. So try and search for the possible causes (i already outlined some of them above) and keep track of any other symptoms to pin down the real cause.

In most cases LFS will give you some kind of general antibacterial or fungicidal treatments that could turn out to be effective. For the record, my plecos had chilodonella and the treatment was based on malachite green.

I hope this was of help.

I'm relatively unqualified to give much advice on the subject...but you may want to try something called melafix or pimafix, or use both together. If I understand correctly one treats bacterial and the other is anti-fungal. In any case I've read that the spectrum of problems they cover together are far better than using one alone.

I've used melafix in the past with success in treating fin rot on a neglected betta. It's ''all natural'' derived from some sort of mint extract or something. It had no ill effects on any other inhabitants in the tank, and all accounts I've read online from those who used it were either neutral or positive.

With most treatments though keep in mind you'll have to remove carbon from your filtration for the medicines to be effective.

If you have inverts, be sure to check warnings on anything you're considering using.

If the eye is the only area affected, then most probably you are dealing with a bacterial infection. I would treat with gentamycin.

However, since it's not possible to make a diagnosis for a distant and since this mught be a first symptom of another disease, you can treat for both bacteria and fungus.

The most important thing is to quarantine the fish.