Tiger Barb Side Fin Injury

[Mati2s]

HI, Today i was shocked when i saw one of my tiger barbs with damaged side fin. I have 9 tiger barbs (4 of them are green) in 30 gallon tank. Sometimes they chase each other around, but nothing more, there was no fin nipping before. they were +- friendly, well as much as tiger barbs can be. So what is that? damage from fin nipping or what? any advices what should i do now, i see that other barbs start to chase injured barby. (interesting that most of chasers are green tiger barbs). sorry for bad picture quality, you can see the bloody place, almost all fin is gone, only small front line is left, but it is not moving thanks for any advice

 

[primagen]

does the base of the nipped fin look infected? if so, it might be bacterial. i'd move the barb to a separate tank and treat with melafix, keeping the water clean with daily partial water changes. if he's not being harassed too badly, you might get away with treating in the main tank. what other fish do you have in the tank?

 

[Mati2s]

only tiger and green tiger barbs, fin looks bloody, but not infected, well actually i dont know how infected fin base looks

 

[fluttermoth]

I'm afraid it's probably been nipped off by the other barbs; that's a female and I expect she's being bothered by the males. If you can't move her to another tank, there's not alot you can do, apart from keep the water quality up and watch out for secondary ifections.

Tiger barbs can be really rough; one of my females had almost her whole tail chewed off last year but it grew back fine (I can't even tell which one it is now) and I didn't separate her or anything.

 

[Mati2s]

thank you, both i always tought that that is male. About seperating, i have middle size breeding cage, maybe i can isolate her in breeding cage?

 

[fluttermoth]

Is it one of those ones that floats or hangs in the main tank? If so, you could put her in there for a few hours, just to give her a break (if the others are still bothering her),
It could be a very pale coloured male; it can be hard to tell when they're stressed, I would still have expected to see a redder nose if it was a male though.

 

[Mati2s]

ok, thank you, as i see that barbs ar more or less calm, i will try to get out of this without any seperation

 

[Mati2s]

today, almost after 3 months he died after that fin injury he stoped to grow and from 2nd biggest barb become 2nd smallest. Few days ago he started to separate from his school, but still he was eating and swimming as allways. yea, and the fin never came back

 

[This Old Spouse]

So sorry for your loss. I'm amazed at the different levels of aggression these guys can have. I had one school of calm, wonderful barbs that got along with everything in my community tank. Then power outage, cold tank, everything died. Just got another group of 9 barbs, and they chase anything that moves. I had to put them in their own separate tank. I hope the rest of yours will be all right.

 

[Miles_hot]

It's interesting that you originally thought it was a green which had caused the initial issue - in our tank the greens seem to be the more abrasive with each other and the normal tigers...
How do you tell the sexes?

 

[Blubble37]

just to point out that melafix is only tea tree oil, myxazin works much beter

 

[Mati2s]

It's interesting that you originally thought it was a green which had caused the initial issue - in our tank the greens seem to be the more abrasive with each other and the normal tigers...
How do you tell the sexes?

Males have brighter (more orange) nose and fins, females have bigger belly than males yes,usually normals tigers are more agressive, but that day, greens were. I think it was done by biggest tiger barb, I bought this(injured) barb later and biggest barb didnt like him from beginning, chased him from time to time more than other barbs