Plec Discolouration

I just went to drop my Common plec's courgette into the tank and noticed his underside looked a bit white and mottled - like he has mould. The picure above may help.

He seems happy enough, he's out and about feeding and looking otherwise healthy, and the other fish look fine.

The water temperature is 26 degrees C, nitrite, and ammonia are zero, pH is 6.8. The substrate is smooth, 3mm gravel and there's no heater for him to burn himself on as it is in the filter unit. I have Jewel textured rock backgrounds but he's never rubbed himself on them before, so I don't think they are an issue. Other than varying between sweet potato, butternut squash and courgette he has Hikari algae wafers, so his diet is pretty mixed.

Any idea what this is what to do about it?

Sorry, not very good at the picture editing and getting them to a decent size. This may show more detail.

looks relatively normal to me - does he hide somewhere with a rough surface under him?

I checked my plec last night, if yours is a common plec, mines just the same. In fact he seems to change his colour according to .... well according to himself..

One minute he was fine, he saw me and decided to go all blotchy.

From what I can see its fairly normal. Keep your eye on it, make sure hes not rubbing or that its swollen.

Thanks, both. I just got in from work and had a look at him again and the white mouldy look has gone - now back to his normal appearance. Very strange. To answer the question re. surfaces he spends time on, he spends much of the day behind a large peice of Mapani wood, usually sucking on/up against on the tank background, one of those textured rock ones. Other than that, one of the large pieces of bogwood and the filter housing and glass are popular spots.

As mentioned, he seems perfectly happy and normal in his behaviour, the sudden discolouration just had me rather worried. Will keep and eye on him and post again if anything happens.

As a final comment, the plec is fine - and, yes, he does change colour sometimes! He did it on me last night, never noticed it before. I suspect I may have just been looking at his underside when he did this.

They do it alot plecs. Mine seems to be blotchy while hes out in the open. If he is eating an algae wafer or my night lights are on he seems more coloured.

Glad hes OK.