Fin Rot

TaylorPilot · Nov 23, 2015

I just setup a 40B, cycled it and am reading zero ammonia and nitrite. I put a Banggai Cardinal in the tank the other day along with a green chromis. Well the strangest thing happened. The other day the bottom half of the cardinals tail was just MISSING. No signs of aggression. I thought it was wierd and that maybe it had gotten hung up in a rock or something. Far fetched, but possible I guess. Well they both have been fine for about 3 days, the literally about 5 minutes ago the other half of his tail just fell off. Literally, there 1 minute, gone the next. I also noticed the little chromis has a messed up left pectoral fin. It seems to be mostly missing and is red at the base of his body. So I am thinking maybe it is something they have contracted. They are both still eating and swimming around. Just have body parts falling off.....Any thoughts? There are no invertebrates in the tank yet, so I can still treat them in tank with something as long as it can be removed without soaking into the live rock like copper.

143MPCo · Nov 23, 2015

That looks more like something took a bite out of it...
@Humblefish @melypr1985

melypr1985 · Nov 23, 2015

Um. zombie fish? lol just kidding

I mean, this just screams infection of some sort. Feeding vitamins will help of course. You can feed them antibiotics as well (kanaplex, furan-2, ect.) coupled with a binder like Focus. That is slower than medicating the water and you cant do that in your DT.

Are you SURE there isn't any aggression between the two? Maybe when the lights go out or your not watching? The redness you indicated is the infection of course. But it had to get there somehow... like a bite mark or cut. I feel like it's an injury that got infected and maybe cut most of the way through the tail and that's why it fell off. OR its zombie fish and it's just been dead too long. lol

OH, and i dont know if that tail will grow back. I just dont know.

TaylorPilot · Nov 23, 2015

That is what I thought, but the only thing in there is a 3/4" long chromis. And I haven't seen either of them even make a run at each other. Maybe they got it in the store tank. I have only had them about a week. Figured I would get to small non-aggressive fish to start out with. THat is what I was telling my wife. Maybe they are fighting at night, but literally they swim around together during the day, and when I kick the light on in the morning, they are both hiding in their little holes in separate parts of the tank.

melypr1985 · Nov 23, 2015

TaylorPilot said:
That is what I thought, but the only thing in there is a 3/4" long chromis. And I haven't seen either of them even make a run at each other. Maybe they got it in the store tank. I have only had them about a week. Figured I would get to small non-aggressive fish to start out with. THat is what I was telling my wife. Maybe they are fighting at night, but literally they swim around together during the day, and when I kick the light on in the morning, they are both hiding in their little holes in separate parts of the tank.

They could have it from the LFS. That's totally possible. That's why a good QT is important, even for the first fish in the tank. That's how to treat it (above), but my gut says that tail aint grow'n back. I dub him "Stumpy" lol

TaylorPilot · Nov 23, 2015

LOL, yea I am actually planning on using this tank as my qt, but I have been testing out some smaller overflows and stuff, so I figured I would just set it up for a little while to have something to play with till I get a bigger tank setup.

Humblefish · Nov 23, 2015

Unless the two fish are literally tearing each other apart, I have to agree with Meredith and say this is likely the work of a bacterial infection. Do you have any corals/inverts in this tank?

TaylorPilot · Nov 23, 2015

No I don't. I'm at petsmart (lfs is an hour away), they have erythromycin and tetracycline tablets, both by api. Should Itry soaking reef frenzy in one of these and feeding them while they are still eating?

TaylorPilot · Nov 23, 2015

Those two fish are the only thing in the tank

Luka · Nov 23, 2015

I would go to petsmart and talk to the guy that takes care of the fish see if he is having any problem. If not then must be something in your tank.

TaylorPilot · Nov 23, 2015

I didn't get the fish from there. I got them from a friend with a really nice store in Houston, I was just at peysmart because it was 5 minutes from my house.

Luka · Nov 23, 2015

Ahh okay my bad

TaylorPilot · Nov 23, 2015

Maybe I'll call Nick tomorrow and ask him, but honestly he flies through stock so fast, they don't have time to get sick. I know he had a full medical setup in the back with about 40 tanks to put fish with issues in. These looked fine when I put them in, although I did think he point where his tail meet his body looked a tiny bit pink when I got him, but all his fins looked great. (The rest still do)

Luka · Nov 23, 2015

Doing some research try a lot of water changes and try melafix

TaylorPilot · Nov 23, 2015

Yea, I just made up about 50 gallons of fresh saltwater earlier this week. I just tested the ammonia and nitrite, and they are both undetectable. The chromis still eats like a pig, and the other one just kinda picks at stuff.

melypr1985 · Nov 23, 2015

TaylorPilot said:
No I don't. I'm at petsmart (lfs is an hour away), they have erythromycin and tetracycline tablets, both by api. Should Itry soaking reef frenzy in one of these and feeding them while they are still eating?

You want the erythromycin med

TaylorPilot · Nov 23, 2015

melypr1985 said:
You want the erythromycin med

Any dosing or application suggestions? I don't really want to dose the tank if I don't have to. Soaking the food would be a better solution if I can.

melypr1985 · Nov 23, 2015

TaylorPilot said:
Any dosing or application suggestions? I don't really want to dose the tank if I don't have to. Soaking the food would be a better solution if I can.

Yes you can soak the food with it but you need a binder like Seachem's Focus to make it safe. There will be a small amount of "bleeding" into the water, but you can run carbon during this time to soak that up.

TaylorPilot · Nov 23, 2015

Thanks,
I will give it a try tomorrow. Hopefully they survive. Although the medication is more expensive than both of the fish were. Not that it really matters.

Humblefish · Nov 23, 2015

melypr1985 said:
You want the erythromycin med

+1 And being you don't have corals/inverts in your tank, you can dose this directly into the DT. Antibiotics don't get absorbed like copper does and they don't last long in the water column. The old formula for "Chemiclean" - which people use to combat cyanobacteria in their reef tank - was basically just erythromycin. So, it's even (questionably) coral/invert safe.