Fin rot or play fighting?
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fin rot caused by poor water quality or a dirty tank.
Wipe the inside of the glass down with a clean fish sponge.
Check the water quality for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and pH.
Do a 75% water change and gravel clean the substrate. The water changes and gravel cleaning will reduce the number of disease organisms in the water and provide a cleaner environment for the fish to recover in.
Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it is added to the tank.
Clean the filter if it hasn't been done in the last 2 weeks. However, if the filter is less than 6 weeks old, do not clean it. Wash the filter materials/ media in a bucket of tank water and re-use them. Tip the bucket of dirty water on the garden/ lawn.
Increase surface turbulence/ aeration when using salt or medications because they reduce the dissolved oxygen in the water.
If there's no improvement after a few days of water changes, add some salt, (see directions below).
--------------------
SALT
You can add rock salt (often sold as aquarium salt), sea salt or swimming pool salt to the aquarium at the dose rate of 1 heaped tablespoon per 20 litres of water. If there is no improvement after 48 hours you can double that dose rate so there is 2 heaped tablespoons of salt per 20 litres.
If you only have livebearers (guppies, platies, swordtails, mollies), goldfish or rainbowfish in the tank you can double that dose rate, so you would add 2 heaped tablespoons per 20 litres and if there is no improvement after 48 hours, then increase it so there is a total of 4 heaped tablespoons of salt per 20 litres.
Keep the salt level like this for at least 2 weeks but no longer than 4 weeks otherwise kidney damage can occur. Kidney damage is more likely to occur in fish from soft water (tetras, Corydoras, angelfish, gouramis, loaches) that are exposed to high levels of salt for an extended period of time, and is not an issue with livebearers, rainbowfish or other salt tolerant species.
The salt will not affect the beneficial filter bacteria but the higher dose rate (4 heaped tablespoons per 20 litres) will affect some plants and some snails. The lower dose rate (1-2 heaped tablespoons per 20 litres) will not affect 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.
Wipe the inside of the glass down with a clean fish sponge.
Check the water quality for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and pH.
Do a 75% water change and gravel clean the substrate. The water changes and gravel cleaning will reduce the number of disease organisms in the water and provide a cleaner environment for the fish to recover in.
Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it is added to the tank.
Clean the filter if it hasn't been done in the last 2 weeks. However, if the filter is less than 6 weeks old, do not clean it. Wash the filter materials/ media in a bucket of tank water and re-use them. Tip the bucket of dirty water on the garden/ lawn.
Increase surface turbulence/ aeration when using salt or medications because they reduce the dissolved oxygen in the water.
If there's no improvement after a few days of water changes, add some salt, (see directions below).
--------------------
SALT
You can add rock salt (often sold as aquarium salt), sea salt or swimming pool salt to the aquarium at the dose rate of 1 heaped tablespoon per 20 litres of water. If there is no improvement after 48 hours you can double that dose rate so there is 2 heaped tablespoons of salt per 20 litres.
If you only have livebearers (guppies, platies, swordtails, mollies), goldfish or rainbowfish in the tank you can double that dose rate, so you would add 2 heaped tablespoons per 20 litres and if there is no improvement after 48 hours, then increase it so there is a total of 4 heaped tablespoons of salt per 20 litres.
Keep the salt level like this for at least 2 weeks but no longer than 4 weeks otherwise kidney damage can occur. Kidney damage is more likely to occur in fish from soft water (tetras, Corydoras, angelfish, gouramis, loaches) that are exposed to high levels of salt for an extended period of time, and is not an issue with livebearers, rainbowfish or other salt tolerant species.
The salt will not affect the beneficial filter bacteria but the higher dose rate (4 heaped tablespoons per 20 litres) will affect some plants and some snails. The lower dose rate (1-2 heaped tablespoons per 20 litres) will not affect 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.
Thanks for that, although I think it's been caused by squabbling among the fish as they do chase and nip at each other every now and again. It's only 3 of them that have very small damages to the dorsal fin and two also have them on the tail. The rest are fine.
Oh dear, I thought it was due to fighting as my fish can be quite nippy at times. Looks like I'll have to get on top of this and have it sorted.
Would you be able to tell me what type of fin rot it is? I think the root cause of it might have been nipped fins. I will do some large regular water changes and some good substrate vacuums and hopefully it should clear up.
Any damage to the tail or fins can let bacteria in to make it worse. So fish biting each others tails can cause this, as can poor water quality or a dirty tank.
Fortunately the tail doesn't appear badly infected and should heal up by itself if the conditions are good. If there's no improvement after a few days of clean water then add some salt to kill any bad bacteria in the damaged tissue.
Fortunately the tail doesn't appear badly infected and should heal up by itself if the conditions are good. If there's no improvement after a few days of clean water then add some salt to kill any bad bacteria in the damaged tissue.
It was definitely causes by a nipped tail as she's chased more than any other fish in the group. Double checked my water parameters today to see if that was causing any issues but everything is reading as it should.
Also wondering if using some melafix will help? I've had a bottle of it kept in the cupboard for the past 3 weeks just in case any bacterial issues occur.
Yeh I've seen very mixed reviews on it. It seems to be a case of pot luck if it works or not, it also only seems to work on issues that are quite mild.
The -fix medications are more like Dettol. OK to stop an infection getting into a wound, but useless if an infection gets in.
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