My ultra-sweet ranchu, Lance, has developed torn looking holes on one side of his tail fin. The fins aren't torn on the edges, but instead they are in the middle of the fin. Also, they look infected (there is white on the edges).

The params are ammonia=0, nitrite=0 don't know nitrates. He is the only fish in a 20 gallon tank and I change the water almost every week from 10-50%.

Does anyone know what this is??? I know this isn't the treatment forum, but what antibiotic should I use? I was thinking a fin-rot antibiotic but I didn't know since it doesn't look like classic fin rot. I'm reallllllly worried about him. : ( I put some melafix in there as a temporary treatment until I can get a med later tonight.


Any help you could give me would be so much appreciated. : )

what is the ph of the tank? do you have a filter on it? how long has it been set up?
this happened to one of my fish a while ago, it was a water quality issue. do you treat your tap water with anything?

The pH of the fish water is always in the 7.2 range. This tank hasn't been set up for long but it's fully cycled. I didn't add Lance until it was fully cycled. I cycled it using water and filter medium from my other tank which has been set up for over a year. Yes I treat my tap with something! I treat it with aquasafe and have never had a problem with it.

You say your fish had this problem? What did you do for it? Did it get better?

I have some Mardel Tetracycline tablets for popeye, gill disease and tail rot. I guess I'll add that since no one seems to have any better ideas. : ) I don't want to wait any longer to make a move as Lance is very important to me- as with all my fish, of course.

By the way, he's still active and has a healthy appetite, but as I said, I don't want to wait for fear the situation will get worse. : (

If anyone has any ideas off-hand of what this is please let me know. My boyfriend says it looks like he tore it on something- but I'm skeptical of that. I just hope it goes away. I read about a disease once in which the fin-rot starts at the base of the tail and moves out, it's a rare disease and incurable usually- I pray that's not what this is.

thanks, ff

just out of curiousity ... do you happen to have any chinese algae eaters in with the goldy?

I had chinese algae eaters in with my betta, they sucked holes in his fins and I tried using melafin, too bad bettas die easily when you use that and he died and started rotting (I was gone for 2 days) and the other tropicals ate him and died

Kim

Nope no algea eaters at all. Lance is the only organism in there (besides the bacteria). Oh and the filter in there is a Penguin 170.

Oh yeah, I put Tetracycline tablets in there last night, since I don't really no what to do. He eats them like they're candy. I hope that's alright. I know it can't be good for his poor little digestive system. He doesn't gulp them down at once, he just eats the bits of it as they dissolve. I hope this stuff works. I've used it before and had no luck and had had to get a different brand- which did work. That's why I had these tablets left over.

Have you tried salt in the tank? I would add salt, to a 0.3% see if that helps. What do you think happened to his tail?
If it is tore or poked a whole in salt and pristine water will help.

No I didn't use salt. Since it looks infected I skipped the salt treatment and went right to tetracycline. I don't want to take any chances with him.

Salt won't hurt him, it is a natural healing agent for the fish.

On a second note, I would dissolve the tabs in tank water before putting them in the tank. I don't think it is good he is eating them.

I might do the dissolve thing. : )

I've used salt before and had good results with minor fungus and fin probs, but this looks pretty severe to me. Like I said, he's still acting healthy and all, but the holes in his fin are pretty big. It was kind of hard to tell at first since he's calico and his fins are spotted, plus he wiggles his little tail so much it's hard to see the holes. Maybe that's why I couldn't see it and it got infected.

I will add that although he's in good water conditions now, I took him out of a situation (someone else had him) in which his water had very high nitrates.

Thanks for the input Laurie and everyone else. I hope he gets better.

I tried to post a pic but it didn't work.

how long ago was he in the high nitrate water?
-When my fish got it, it was one big hole in the middle of the tail, and it was brown around the edges of the hole. Like yours, the water was fine...I just used melafix and pimafix, and a little salt and it went away on its own.
I hope your fish gets better really soon!!

Thank you so much Grain, that gives me hope. Mine sounds like yours except it's white around the edges instead of brown. He's been out of the high nitrate water for about a month.

are the holes getting any better yet?

Thanks for asking. No they aren't better, really. I think I need to try something else because I remember this med not working on a fish I had that developed fin rot. Then I got another medicine and it worked. But since I started the treatment with this med shouldn't I finish it out? I already tried melafix for awhile but it wasn't working, and since I wanted to get this healed as quickly as possible before it spread I moved to meds.

He's still active and happy, and has a huge appetite as usual. : ) He's only been on meds since Monday, but I would really expect results by now since the treatment ends on Friday.

which med are you using?
since it is almost done, just go ahead and finish it....maybe then if you don't see any improvement by saturday or so, do a big water change and decide which other med might be best. Does it seem to be spreading any?

I've foudn some amazing results with using the combo of mela and primafix....you should give it a shot.

I know it's been awhile since I posted on this thread, but I'm still battling with the tail issue.

The bad news is, after finishing the treatment with Kanocyn their was still a couple of thin spots in his tail that looked like they may become holes. Well, they did become holes, and even though they didn't get fuzzy, they made his tail start to disentigrate again.

The good news is, I gave him another treatment of Kanocyn and his tail is now growing back again, and this time it doesn't have any thing areas. Hopefully the tail completely heals and the disease doesn't come back- I hate to jinx it though.

At an out-of-town pet store I bought some internal antibiotics in case it comes back, although I don't know if that works for external diseases so well.



Soph, how do you use a mixture of mela and prima fix?

I tried to post a pic again but for some reason I can't. Probably because I'm technologically remedial.

You can use my pimafix. Just to let you know, since you'll probably read this by the time I talk to you next.

Cool

I actually haven't talked to you yet. I've never mixed mela and prima fix before though.

I did some internet-searching (you know I can't resist) and found a pretty strong consensus among fish people about mixing your fixes:

You don't have to halve the dose, just add the normal dose of both. It helps to mix them in a cup of tank water first and then pour that into the tank. You should be aware that using both together can cause changes in pH. Other than that, just follow the instructions on the bottle.

Good luck with that, Neej.

At first I was like, "Neej"? I was all trying to figure out what N-E-E-J stood for. Now I remember, yes, Neej. Since I can't be "Deej".


Anyway, thanks so much for the info. I had no idea how to dose them.

I'm going to post something to you in Chatterbox just so you know, because I forgot to ask you something on the phone.

I can't chatterbox, silly willy. I'm still a fry.

What?

There's areas of this site I'm just not good enough to access yet. I don't know about all of them, obviously, but I'm pretty sure the chatterbox is one of them. I need more posts!

Oops, didn't know that, or I forgot.

I will say what I was going to say in the new members thread.


On Lance's tail: I noticed something sad today. On one side where the tail is growing back, it's growing back WITH a hole in it. Not infected or anything, but a hole nontheless. So I used some of your primafix and mixed it with my melafix and dosed the tank. This made my water cloudy but oh well. I wonder if his tail would have grown without holes if I'd done that earlier. I'm so frustrated!

Ugh. Lance would be a cutie without his tail, though. Not that I think being tail-less would be very fun for him. Poor guy...

At least that one part is kind of growing back.

Yeah, one side is okay. The rest of his tail is alright on the other side, there's just one tiny hole. But in the past the holes don't heal, they get bigger until I have to use medicine.