death in the family

my papa royal pleco was found dead today at 5:15 PM, judging from skin pallor, overall degeneration of the flesh i'd estimate it died 48 hours ago. both eyes were missing, meaning it was murdered. the aggression level has increased dramatically in the tank, although the former bonded mismatched pair of the texas cichlid and blood parrot is now gone after a successful spawning. the texas cichlid is still exibiting signs of bacterial infection even after multiple treatments with several broad spectrum antibiotics, an external cotton growth has appeared and has been treated with salt and a general antiseptic. i've excised the inflamed external growths twice now, using topical neomycin sulfate, methylene blue, cyanocobalamin; but the growths always reappear after a couple of months. i'll continue treatment with salt in the water to aid healing, and tea tree oil in the water as a weak antiseptic to cover external bacterial or fungal causes. if it continues to worsen i'll have to excise the cysts again and isolate the fish and try a much stronger approach or euthanize the fish, as i believe it's untreatable tuberculosis.

another depressing day.