Tail disappeared overnight.

Mielo · Aug 21, 2020

Hi All

I woke up one morning and found the tail fin of my female clown fish gone. I don’t think its fin rot as her tail was there the night before. I am baffled as to how it happened. Dont think there are any crabs in the tank either as I am sure I would of seen it over the past 11 months the tanks has been running.

I have a small 35litre cube tank with liverock, heaps of , a smaller male clown, mandarin, some rhicordia and some mushrooms and one small hermit crab.

I have since isolated her and started treating with Melafix. The treatment has been going now for 5 days and she stopped eating on the third day of treatment. The wound does not seem to be improving.

Should I change the medication or just be patient.

Jay Hemdal · Aug 21, 2020

Wow - I wonder what could have taken the tail down to the hypural plate like that overnight! Sorry, but it likely won’t grow back.
I’ve never seen any definitive study that shows Melafix is a true antibiotic for severe infections, it is more of a tonic .
Changing to a standard antibiotic might not work since the infection is so advanced by now, but you could try a good broad spectrum like furan-2
Jay

Mielo · Aug 22, 2020

Jay Hemdal said:
Wow - I wonder what could have taken the tail down to the hypural plate like that overnight! Sorry, but it likely won’t grow back.
I’ve never seen any definitive study that shows Melafix is a true antibiotic for severe infections, it is more of a tonic .
Changing to a standard antibiotic might not work since the infection is so advanced by now, but you could try a good broad spectrum like furan-2
Jay

Thank you for the response, but she was euthanised as she was suffering too much.