First Aggression related injury

[blue2fyre]

I went to feed my cichlids this evening and noticed one of my ice blues is pretty beat up. He has wounds along his side and his fins are ripped. He's still swimming around but a little wobble. I took my betta out of my 5 gallon and put my ice blue in there. I'm worried it's my larger male that did it. I had purchased the currently injured one (Mini Boss is his name) thinking he was a female but recently I've been thinking he may be male. I was giving him some time to grow before I decided what to do with him.

What do I do to help him heal?
When he heals should I reintroduce him or assume he's a male and take him back to the LFS?

[Pittbull]

ragged fin injuries, well at this point in a small 5gal you will need to do water changes at the rate of twice a week say about 30% add some aquarium salt and stress coat with the aloe vera and he should heal fine when he is back to normal i wouldnt re-introduce him back into that tank even if you rearrange the rockwork the dominant male will surely kick his but again, i would take him back to the pet shop so that he will get the chance to be king somewhere else, just my opinion my friend.. take care and good luck..

[Coler]

I broadly agree with pitbull. Your problem is that if you are going to keep two male zebras in there, you want at least 4 or 5 or so females, and even then the dominant male will probably not tolerate a conspecific.

Keep him in the 5G to nurse him back to health. Best thing for him is constantly clean water, so in fact I would do a daily 100% change. If you see improvement quickly in his wounds there will be no need to medicate. You are increasing the bioload on the 5G (1 mbuna is a lot more than 1 betta) so test parameters for ammonia and nitrite to ensure the bacteria colonies catch up quickly enough to prevent spikes.

[blue2fyre]

Thank you :)

He's looking better already this morning so I'm heal him back and try and get another female. Hopefully this time it will actually be a female lol