# still battling fin rot ???



## tbub1221 (Nov 1, 2012)

Hi all , for anyone who wouldn't know , my tank got hit by a combo of a nipper and a sick fish who broght us ich and fin rot , i think a lot of the fin rot was due to stress and nipping. well i got all the ich 100% gone for about 5 days now , but the original fish with fin rot first just died today after 3 weeks of sickness. she as well as others have had salt dips and a treatment cycle with lifeguard for the ich. well i got the nipper out ( red minor tetra was acting up) but now iv got 1 fish with nothing but a nub and a few showing fin rot. i have read a lot about it and understand how it is started/ brought on and how bad water ETC>> can influence it further. well i need to treat this but have many ideas on where to start , so far i can say my PH is at a 7.0 across the board and as of yesterday my ammonia was at .50 , i know its a bit high , but i attribute this to only running carbon for 4 days , my ammonia spiked a bit wile i was not using carbon and treating the ich ... so it has been slowly subsiding daily though , as well as me doing aprox 20-30 % water swaps daily now , which is also stressful , nitrates and nitrites aren't high , i had the water tested at a lfs for the heck of it 3 days back , but do not have a nitrite kit myself (needs a new one but is hard to find out of master test kit and i dont want to waste 25$ for a single test i dont always need ) so my thoughts are firstly , to bump my temp from 78 to 82 F and add a little more aquarium salt first , also im thinking on adding so bio culture because i know iv put my bio filter and micro organisms through hell treating and doing water changes daily to control the ammonia lvls etc back when they were sick before and i thing that should help with that little bit of extra ammonia and nitrated to break down . etc.. so also although iv never used anything but a little prime water conditioner i may also get an ammonia deactivator to help battle it. so any info or direction in treatment is appreciated. .. PS my tank is a 30 gal peaceful mixed community of platy's guppy's a red tailed shary(hes not aggressive yet.very peaceful and happy) also i have a few zebra danios (not many egg layers) i also have a small chinees alga eater and a small albino cory cat and 2 kuhli loaches... so i have a good # of friends , but i have lost a few and re homed all my waste producers (AKA goldfish & pleco) so my ammonia lvls went from an uncontrollable 3.0 to .5 ammonia now but its seems now there health is worse , my ph was at 7.2-coming from tap and like 7.4 in my tank , now it stays at 7.0 but why now that things are better chen lvl wise why are they seeming sicker. (i feel its stress from me always fkng with the water , water changes , gravel vacking etc , so thats why i thought about the chems to help with ammonia control , even though i am mostly against use of chems if avoidable. also thats why i want to put culture in it to rebuild my bio filter , then i will stop messing with the fish and water as much , giving them time to heal. most all my fish have deap rich colors as well , we feed a diverse mix of feed , high protein as well as all appropriate plant and alga substitutes flakes and pellet food , i do not over feed though we just like them to get all there appropriate vitamins and needs for the different fish we keep. but i do not know a whole lot about calcium and other minerals , but is someone would enlighten me as to a healthy approach to make the fish healthier in any way im so open to it .. thanks to you all for reading this and God Bless..


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## tbub1221 (Nov 1, 2012)

Also if i decide its not getting better , what is my best bet of an antibiotic , (keep in mind although i have a quarentine tank , its small and i will be treating the entire 30 gallon tank.

Melafix is one iv read about but some say its not that great and wont treat them wile there infected , it only speeds up gestation 

Maracyn 2 Two this product sems to get great reviews , (then again i can make a great review about a golden hotdog so id prefer to know from someone that has encountered it personally..


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## Sully (Oct 31, 2012)

I'm currently treating two of my fish with a bacterial disease with API erythromyacyn. They've been put in a 10 gallon quarentine tank for treatment until they're better. I opted for a treatment/quarentine tank as treating sick fish in larger tanks can get expensive. I got a 10 gal tank, heater and back filter for around 40.00 which was cheaper than it would have been to buy the meds to fully treat them in my 65 gallon tank.

2 days in and they are showing signs of improvement. Not long enough for a recomendation but thought I'd pass on the info. You're not alone and it is a VERY FRUSTRATINGjourney trying to treat these ailments but it is not futile.


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## sivakv (Aug 6, 2010)

Perhaps your PH might be a problem, could you bump it to 8.0 ? scars on body could also come for ammonia burn, ph incompatibility etc is what i have heard. I believe fin rot etc happens when the immune system of the fish lowers as the dormant bacteria starts to attack and are opportunistic. Yes, size of tank/volume could be a issue, but some of the contagious ones you will end up treating the large volume water to eradicate totally. I faced similar problem and it was a nightmare, lost half my carefully selected dear fishes. Also good to have a UV sterilizer, i had one built into my filter, when ever i used to switch on if i see any sign of flashing etc it used to vanish in 2 days !!! 

There will be more experienced people responding, sure there will be solution.


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## jrman83 (Jul 9, 2010)

Fin rot doesn't require any meds really. You can use if you like, but you don't have to. I am sure you have read by now that fin rot is a water quality issue nearly always, if not always. The fact that you have ammonia present says something about your water quality. You could have issues from excessively high nitrates as well. 25-30% is a good idea and I don't care what anyone tells you that little of a water change is not stressing your fish.

It has been a long time since I seen fin rot and it came on a new fish I got. I didn't isolate the fish or add meds, just did 30% water changes everyday until I saw the wound looked like it was stopping and beginning to heal. From there just kept an eye on the fish and it eventually went away.


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## tbub1221 (Nov 1, 2012)

Ok thanks , I did add some booster bacteria today and about 2 Tbl spoons of salt , I will continue to do 30% changes daily any thing elsi I can do ? I have an aquateck 20-40 3stage filter on a 30 gal and I'm using new carbon , so if I'm still showing a little bit of ammonia but I'm gravel vacuuming and water swapping and treating my water with prime , what else can I do to get that lastbit of ammonia out of there.. ?


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## jrman83 (Jul 9, 2010)

How long has the tank been running? Can you list your fish? Sounds like you may be a good bit overstocked.


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