Split Fins - Lfs Says It's Not Fin Rot?

[The Lady Raven]

Hi, I have one female guppy, 2 small bristlenoses (about 1.5cm each) and one slightly larger bristlenose (about 5cm). I looked in the tank yesterday evening and one of the baby's has two splits in his tail, like someone cut it with scissors. The guppy also has a split like this right through her tail. None of the fish seem at all bothered by this but I'm getting concerned as a baby bristlenose died on me not long ago. I did a water test two days ago and the tank is fine, I also did a normal water change.

I phoned my lfs and explained the problem and they said unless there are see-through areas or white specs like fungus it's unlikely to be fin-rot (apparently this normal frays fins from the ends). They said it may be a rogue fish (I assume the larger bristlenose) but I don't see how he could produce this effect and the one fish I do see him chasing is unaffected at present. Please help!

 

[brittlestar]

Do the split fins look tatty, have any white gunk or are blood stained?

 

[Saedcantas]

I briefly had a small BN that caused this kind of fin damage to all and sundry in my tank... he soon found a new home

Keep an eye on the fish themselves for signs Testing the water to ensure there are no underlying problems is also a good plan

 

[voo]

I have bristlenose's and one of mine had a split fin. I read somewhere on here that they do repair themselves, although if it's fin rot then it wont repair itself.
Mine did heal, although it got split again in another place. Doesn't seem to have affected them though, they're still just as clumbsy and careless around the tank

 

[brittlestar]

What substrate and decor do you have in the tank? Are there any sharp rocks or sticky up bits of bogwood? Its possible they have caught it and ripped it or something, my cory is a nutter and is always misjudging the holes in the rainbow rock and bashing himself

 

[WILDER]

Split fins can happen to most fish, they will heal in good water quality as long as there no fluff on them or white edging.

 

[The Lady Raven]

Thanks for your help everyone. I have checked and checked and there is no blood staining, white stuff or anything like this. There's nothing spiky in the tank that they could tear themselves on and all the decor has been there for ages without anything like this happening. Why I'm worried is the two baby bns are relatively new to the tank and a third one died a while back - I'm wondering if they brought a disease with them? The guppy's fins seem to be getting a bit worse, nothing serious but they're slowly getting worse. She's also a bit frayed at the end of her tail. She doesn't have a problem swimming and the bn who has some splits is being his usual self, sitting on the filter and nibbling everything!

I'm going to try getting some fin-repair stuff from my lfs and see what that does...

 

[WILDER]

If the fish has raggy edges it is finrot, a clear cut in the fin is n othing to worry about if that all that there, but with the raggy edges i would treat for finrot.

 

[MHunt]

Fancy guppies are very succeptible to split fins. My two blue delta tails split occaionally, but they heal themselves within a few days.

You could watch out for any of the other fish nipping their fins, saw a tank of guppies with a tiger barb at a LFS once, all the guppies tails were badly munched!

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Fancy guppies are very succeptible to split fins. My two blue delta tails split occaionally, but they heal themselves within a few days.

You could watch out for any of the other fish nipping their fins, saw a tank of guppies with a tiger barb at a LFS once, all the guppies tails were badly munched!

Very true with fancy guppys that they are prone to getting split fins, regular small water changes and making sure the current is not too strong will help clear them up.
However i did have one old female guppy once who had a huge delta tail which had two permanent splits in it during the last year of her life, although these seemed to cause no worry to her and she lived to a good ripe old age.
I believe such splits are often the product of guppys having been selectively bred to have massive tails in comparison to the natural short ones in a very small space of time, there are still many issues surrounding the well being of guppys with long fancy tails.
I never see splits in guppys whose tail length is much closer to the natural short tail types .