Aquaria Central

[flutterbye75]

I think that my one and only female swordtail has fin rot...she is missing half of her tail and her side fins look tattered....what can I use on her to fix it, and will her tail grow back?

[sky.eyes.woman]

Fin rot starts out looking like a whitish line on the edge of an area of missing fin. If she does not have anything like that or a cottony-looking growth on her fins anywhere it might be something else. Could another fish be nipping her fins? If it is fin rot or some other disease, put her in a hospital tank if possible and treat her with an anti-fungal medicine like Maracyn or General Cure. Melafix will help too...and are you putting any salt in your tank water? Salt might help slow the progress of diseases and parasites and helps ease stress on the fish, not to mention swordtails really do best with salt in their water anyway. Her tail will grow back but it might be slow since it is completely gone.

[Leopardess]

Fin rot can have a black edge too.

Clean water is the most important thing to do for her right now. Make sure you keep the water fresh and clean. Clean water will stave off secondary infections, will keep her healthier and more able to bounce back and will help prevent future outbreaks (often fin rot is a sign of "poor" water conditions in some respect).

Next, you can add some salt or a broadspectrum antibiotic such as Maracyn Plus. You could try Melafix but if the missing portion is large, I would go for something more powerful like salt/Maracyn Plus.

If it is soft and fuzzy on the edges, you'll want something for fungus.

[Rushdude]

If it has fin rot treat the disease and use melafix to help its fin grow back. Do a lot of water changes to the tank that it is in too remembering to add a little melafix after each one. What are the inhabitants of the tank that it is in?

[flutterbye75]

yes she has a white line on the edge of her fins....i just did back to back 50% water changes because the ammonia was .50 oops....it is back down to 0 now....I added salt to the aquarium as well (I was using it already). The only other fish that I have in the tank are about 4 guppies and 3 mollies in a 10 gallon. Which solution works the best, or will they both work equally?

[XSeaNX]

Is this a newly cycled tank? or did the ammonia just spike? If so that issue also needs to be adressed. If its a spike you might be feeding too much.

Anyway For fin rot and fungal infections I use Nitrofurazone and a treatment of 2 tablespoons of salt per 10 gals. The NICE thing about nitrofurazone is that it doesnt require the removal of bio-media and doesnt destroy bacteria colonies. Anyway the non-medicinal treatment for fin-rot is salt and water changes...just keep the water clean and the salt should hold back the infection. Ive used it that Treatment when Quarantining my Stingrays as due to the plastic sheaths to cover their stinger during shipments they tend to get fungal infections and/or tail rot/fungal infections. Clean water and salt took care of the problem quickly (noticable results in 24hrs for me IME)

[flutterbye75]

No it is not a new tank, I think that I was feeding too much to the fish. Anyway, I have cut back feedings and increased water changes and hopefully I can stay on top of things.

One question, every time I do a 50% change should I add salt equivelent to that? 1tblsp per 5 gallons?

[XSeaNX]

yes if you are treating with salt make sure you add back what you took out...

so if you do 2 tblspn/10gal and remove 5 add in another 1 tblspn

[flutterbye75]

Is nitrofurazone available at the local fish store or do I have to order it online? I want to pick some up just in case the salt doesnt work.

[XSeaNX]

I personally have it available at my LFS but its privately owned/operated so they carry off the wall stuff. They also have their own product line of hard-to-get medicine. Ill check around and see if I can find any