Need Urgent Advice on Tin Foil Barb Fish

[coldplay]

Hey guys, I have an injured Tin Foil Barb fish (2 inch big). It got stuck near the wavemaker and damaged scales of its body pretty bad from water pushing against it. I had a guard on for the wavemaker that thankfully stopped it from more damage. Need some advice on how I could help it recover.

He is able to swim but after 30 seconds of swimming turns upside down and comes to the surface. I will click some pictures and attach them. I put him in a seperate tank and treated with melafix and Microbelite artemiss. Should I also give him the salt bath?

Thanks

 

[Magnum Man]

it's hard to say... if he had something wrong with him, before he wedged himself in... ( his eye doesn't look normal ) is he is the only Tin Foil in the tank??? I almost always will argue on minimum group sizes... but on Tin Foils ( at least my experience ) they need a shoal... I have 5 & they are at border line too skittish yet... @Colin_T has salt bath directions in his signature... & he will likely be able to offer good advice... your Tin Foil does have a lot of scale damage, so I would probably think a salt bath may do him good... but will admit, your fish does not look good right now...

I have a group of 5, & the power went off, & goofed up my tank light timers, I came in & flipped the room light on, while the tank lights were all off, & all hades broke out in the tank ( mine are 5-7 inches long ) one was bashing himself like crazy & by the time he settled down, he had a flap of scale or skin pealed up on the front, by his mouth... he has healed up nicely now, without any salt, but my water has been pretty good since I switched in an RO filter...

 

[Colin_T]

Don't use Melafix unless you have a filter in the container.

You also need aeration to keep the oxygen levels up

Clean water and salt is the best treatment but the fish might be dead tomorrow.

-------------------

SALT
You can add rock salt (often sold as aquarium salt), swimming pool salt, or any non iodised salt (sodium chloride) to the aquarium at the dose rate of 1 heaped tablespoon per 20 litres (5 gallons) of water. If it goes red, or white and fluffy, you can double that dose rate so there is 2 heaped tablespoons of salt per 20 litres.

Keep the salt level like this for 1-2 weeks.

The salt will not affect the beneficial filter bacteria, fish, plants, shrimp or snails.

After you use salt and the fish have recovered, you do a 10% water change each day for a week using only fresh water that has been dechlorinated. Then do a 20% water change each day for a week. Then you can do bigger water changes after that. This dilutes the salt out of the tank slowly so it doesn't harm the fish.

If you do water changes while using salt, you need to treat the new water with salt before adding it to the tank. This will keep the salt level stable in the tank and minimise stress on the fish.

When you first add salt, add the salt to a small bucket of tank water and dissolve the salt. Then slowly pour the salt water into the tank near the filter outlet. Add the salt over a couple of minutes.

 

[coldplay]

it's hard to say... if he had something wrong with him, before he wedged himself in... ( his eye doesn't look normal ) is he is the only Tin Foil in the tank??? I almost always will argue on minimum group sizes... but on Tin Foils ( at least my experience ) they need a shoal... I have 5 & they are at border line too skittish yet... @Colin_T has salt bath directions in his signature... & he will likely be able to offer good advice... your Tin Foil does have a lot of scale damage, so I would probably think a salt bath may do him good... but will admit, your fish does not look good right now...

I have a group of 5, & the power went off, & goofed up my tank light timers, I came in & flipped the room light on, while the tank lights were all off, & all hades broke out in the tank ( mine are 5-7 inches long ) one was bashing himself like crazy & by the time he settled down, he had a flap of scale or skin pealed up on the front, by his mouth... he has healed up nicely now, without any salt, but my water has been pretty good since I switched in an RO filter...

I have 4 Tin Foils in the tank. This was totally my mistake, I did not preset the wavemaker for lowest setting, It changed after a restart at the max settings for couple of hours until i noticed.

I will try the solution out and hopefully have good news. Right now its looking in pretty bad shape. Any electrolyte or vitamin solutions I could use here to help? since he is not in a shape to eat or move that much

 

[coldplay]

Don't use Melafix unless you have a filter in the container.

You also need aeration to keep the oxygen levels up

Clean water and salt is the best treatment but the fish might be dead tomorrow.

-------------------

SALT
You can add rock salt (often sold as aquarium salt), swimming pool salt, or any non iodised salt (sodium chloride) to the aquarium at the dose rate of 1 heaped tablespoon per 20 litres (5 gallons) of water. If it goes red, or white and fluffy, you can double that dose rate so there is 2 heaped tablespoons of salt per 20 litres.

Keep the salt level like this for 1-2 weeks.

The salt will not affect the beneficial filter bacteria, fish, plants, shrimp or snails.

After you use salt and the fish have recovered, you do a 10% water change each day for a week using only fresh water that has been dechlorinated. Then do a 20% water change each day for a week. Then you can do bigger water changes after that. This dilutes the salt out of the tank slowly so it doesn't harm the fish.

If you do water changes while using salt, you need to treat the new water with salt before adding it to the tank. This will keep the salt level stable in the tank and minimise stress on the fish.

When you first add salt, add the salt to a small bucket of tank water and dissolve the salt. Then slowly pour the salt water into the tank near the filter outlet. Add the salt over a couple of minutes.

Thanks for the detailed instructions on this. I do have a canister filter running continuously and wavemaker, air pump with airstone for oxgenation. I will post updates later tonight if things improve

 

[coldplay]

I have done almost everything now and I see no sign of recovery. He is still turned upside down and does not swim, but still moving the gills. Should I euthanize him? Its been over 24 hours now

 

[Colin_T]

If it hasn't eaten and still can't swim after 24 hours, then yes, euthanise it.