Fin Rot Help!

[smashtime105]

I posted a topic a couple days ago and no one replied so I now decided to post again. Is fin rot even possible in brackish conditions? I am using maracyn two and jungle fungus clear and his "white spot" has not stopped growing and is now making his fins decay a lot. Which medication is best? He is still eating but sulking at the top of the tank. I added the maracyn three days ago and the jungle stuff yesterday and I have seen no effects. PLEASE HELP!!

 

[nmonks]

Is fin rot even possible in brackish conditions?

Yes. Finrot is simply a catch-all name for bacterial infections caused by (as I understand it) Aeromonas and Pseudomonas spp. bacteria in freshwater fish and Vibrio spp. in marine fish. It's also very easy to confuse Finrot for Mouth Fungus, which is the bacterium Flexibacter columnaris. Regardless, these are almost always caused by water quality issues.

I am using maracyn two and jungle fungus clear and his "white spot" has not stopped growing and is now making his fins decay a lot. Which medication is best?

I'm not familiar with any of these. Normally, early cases can be dealt with just fine using anti-bacterials. I find eSHa 2000 to be extremely effective and safe with even sensitive things like puffers and catfish. When things get bad, you may need to use antibiotics. As you hopefully realise Maracyn and Maracyn II most effectively treat gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria respectively. So if one doesn't seem to be working, switch to the other. Neither will work if you have carbon in the filter. Also, if the underlying environmental conditions are poor, nothing will help.

He is still eating but sulking at the top of the tank.

This is actually good, because so long as a fish is feeding, you can be reasonably sure its internal organs and metabolism are fine. But do fix this problem while you can. Doing saltwater dips may help. With an archer this should be easy. Dip daily for 2-20 minutes (long enough to dehydrate the bacteria, but not so long the fish is harmed). Good luck, Neale.>

 

[smashtime105]

Thanks again, your always a big help. I just went to my lfs and got a 10 gallon hospital/ quarantine tank and some mardel maracyn-tc. I moved my archer into it with half- cycled water. This will only be temporary until it is cured though. I have heard of these sg dips, but never tried them. Wouldn't this stress the fish and promote secondary infections. Also, how much do you reduce the sg by? Thanks for the help.


P.S. My water is fine but could it be because of the shipping to my lfs, after all, I only got it a week ago.

 

[nmonks]

Not sure what you mean about "half-cycled water". Who cares about the water? It's the filter that matters, and there's virtually no filter bacteria in the water. So take 25% of the filter media from the established tank and stick in the filter in the hospital tank. I find air-powered box filters are excellent for this, because you can dump in ceramic, filter wool or whatever your mature filter uses.

Anyway, saltwater dips don't do any harm to the fish. The basic protocol is this: Make up a litre or two of full-strength seawater using some sort of salt. Marine salt mix is the ideal perhaps, but rock salt or tonic salt will do fine. Normal seawater is 35 grammes of salt per litre. Add the salt to water taken from the aquarium, so there's no temperature shock. Dip the fish into this for anything up to 20 minutes. The cut-off point is where the fish rolls over; that implies you've left the fish in too long. So dip the fish for as long as it looks fine. Archers are extremely salt tolerant, so you should be fine dipping for up to 20 minutes.

Repeat daily. I usually find that after even a couple of days the outward signs of the infection will have died right back. The antibacterial or antibiotic will then be able to clear up the actual infection.

Obviously, this is from my own personal experience, and your own experiences may be different. If you aren't certain, do short dips (5 minutes) to begin with, and see how things go. But I will tell you that while fixing slime disease on two dwarf red-tail puffers I dipped them for 20 minutes and they were fine. Like archers, puffers are a salt-tolerant group.

Cheers, Neale

 

[smashtime105]

thanks again, but you just put the fish right in without acclimation, it seems to me like that could stress the fish even more? Oh well, your the expert. By the way, when I said half cycled water, I should have said half medicated water from the "old tank" and half dechlorinated tap. I had over filtration on my other tank so I just took the biowheel 150 and transfered it to the 10 gallon hospital tank. I also took all of the carbon out of the filter. So there is a very slim chance of me killing the fish by dipping it?

 

[nmonks]

Realistically, there's almost no chance. For a start, archerfish live in a habitat where one wrong step (fin flick?) and they wind up in high salinity water anyway. But if you don't want to take my word for it, have a read of 'The Manual of Fish Health' by Chris Andrews et al. They describe the method in detail. Bob Fenner also describes the reverse (dipping saltwater fish in freshwater baths) in his books. Done properly, these baths are a very safe, very controllable way to deal with external infections. The "art" is watching the fish, and removing it before it keels over (which is bad). So long as the fish is upright, you're fine.

Cheers, Neale

So there is a very slim chance of me killing the fish by dipping it?

 

[smashtime105]

I have confidence now. You are always a big help. I have heard of the freshwater dipping method as well. I will give the saltwater dip a shot. For how many days should I do this before I should stop?