fin and tail rot

Nico · 08-07-2007, 05:48 PM

Hi I'm new here. I have one fancy goldfish in a 10 gallon tank and we had him/er for 3 years now. We're really attached to him/er. Lately I noticed its fin and tail have gotton shorter than they used to. They're not shredded but the trim of them are zigzag rather than smooth (does it make sense?) Is this a beginning of fin/tail rotting due to bacterial or fungal? Should we treat him with TC Capsules? Please help!

pappyy3 · 08-10-2007, 06:29 AM

Hey Nico

Can you post a picture of your goldfish?

Although fin and tail rot may be a reason for the condition of your fish, there are also a number of other causes as well.

It would help if you could privide a pic

Tommy Gun · 08-12-2007, 10:29 AM

I agree with pappyy3 in that this could be a couple of things and so a picture might help considerably. I would also add that in many cases, these sorts of issues are related to less-than-ideal water quality. That said, can you tell us a little bit about your mantainance regimine such as how often and in what amounts do you perform water changes? Do you test your water for ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate levels and if so, can you share those results with us? Has anything changed recently that might has spurred on this problem?

As a sidenote, I want to point out that it is often pretty important to at least narrow down the possibilities regarding which problem you are actually facing here. This is because, while a lot of people might suggest using a medications which might treat for both bacterial and fungal issues, some medications would also kill the good bacteria that you need, hence they should only be used in extreme cases IMHO.

cichlidgirl · 09-08-2007, 02:00 AM

I had a experience very similar. Check your ph. Have you changed the fishes water supply lately? I once bought a large fish from the pet shop that had been in water with a high ph for several years and stuck him in my tank that had a much lower ph (slightly lower than neutral)and the higher acidity of the lower ph made his fins "burn off". It was awful. I noticed it the second day he was in the tank, I felt so bad. All other fish in tank were fine and no other cases of it appeared. His fins looked like stumps . He eventually grew them back but was very unhappy for quite awhile. Mostly i noticed it was the tail, and the two see through fins on the side. The ones that get used the most for swimming. If you have put driftwood in your tank it will lower the ph over time even if you are doing water changes, driftwood has something called tannins that get realeased into the water as the wood breaks down(usually gives a tan tint to water) .

Tommy Gun · 09-09-2007, 01:35 AM

Quote:

the higher acidity of the lower ph made his fins "burn off".

While I am not trying to pick on you cichlidgirl, but I have never heard of ph differences having the ability to 'burn' off fins and would add that I am in a very similar situation in that I have brought a lot of fish home from an LFS which had a much higher pH than my tank and never had a problem.

However, I would not be surprised if what really happened to your fish is that it came in contact with the bacteria which can cause tail/fin rot, but was healthy enough for its immune system to fight it off...right up until the time in which it experienced a lot of stress from the events related to being bought, transported, and then acclimated to a different aquarium. Or, perhaps your fish was injured at some point which provided the ability for bacteria to infect the fish.

On the same note, it is my understanding that tannins are not a huge concern other then when they are present in vast amounts and the obvious aesthetic related issues...and again, unless the tannis are somehow causing rapid water chemistry changes which may stress fish, the lower pH is also not critical as it relates solely to tail/fin rot...or at least that is my understanding anyways.

In fact, while I don't want to get too far off topic here, to support my comments, check out the pH chart which is located HERE in order to see that even though we speak of water as being either acidic or alkaline, the pH of water has to be extremely low in order to be acidic enough to have much of a chance to eat away at, or dissolve a fish's fins. In fact, I think you might be surprised to see that pure rain water has a pH (about 5.5) which most of us would be hard pressed to recreate in our tanks to some extent (even if using pure water like distilled or RO, RO/DI). Obviously this suggests that if the lower pH in your tank has the ability to dissolve fins, then we would be in some serious trouble if we ever found ourselves stuck outside in a rainstorm for a long period of time...which isn't the case (although I do realize that pollution and what not may play a role in making that statement false)

cichlidgirl · 09-09-2007, 10:07 AM

It was the weirdest thing. Only just that one fish, the other three fish that had been in my tank for about 2 years never got that problem. The fish had beautiful fins when i brought it home. All his fins showed tell tale discoloration (about 1/4 to 1/2 inch of the outside edge of all fins) within 6-8 hours of putting him in my tank. Couple of hours later 6 or so those discolored edges were translucent and breaking off in chunks and ray like bones prodruding and disloving. Within 24 hours it had went from healthy normal robust fins to stumps like a human hand with no fingers . Does tail rot do it that quickly? And it was all his fins, dorsal, anal, tail and the two behind his gill covers. He had no visiable fungus infections and no visiable wounds, appeared to have a good slime coat and heathy scales. I had bought him because he was glorious and in such truly wonderful condiion. It was a big 8-10 oscar. He was put into a 40 gallon long with a algea eater, and two teenage (juv.) oscars (4-5 in). The other two oscars never got any fin damage, and did not mess with the new "big brute" . If i remember right, all his fins were damaged but tail and two ray like fins behind gills took brunt of damage, dorsal and anal fins had just the points dislove off and the rest of those two fins remained intact just more ragged looking than would be normal. I distincly remember the tail looking normal under the lights when i put him in the tank in the morning. I was watching him close because of the small size of my oscars all ready in the tank. (I had two 40 longs and 75 gallon) and if he was beating them up i was going to shift him into a tank with another adult in it. late that afternoon i could see a faded translucent looking edge to the tail beginning to show up, his ray like fins seperated between the rays about half way down. The next day by lunch time he had all stubs on fins used for primary propulsion and others looked very thin and "frayed" along the edges. I thought tail rot was something that took awhile to come on. several days or a week even. ??? Usually with poor water condiions and numerous fungus problems in the tank.

Tommy Gun · 09-09-2007, 01:32 PM

I have recently experienced a very similar thing with one saltwater fish I just brought home...it appeared to be completely fine when I bought it, but the next morning its normally electric blue dorsal fin was clear and had two fin rays which were almost completely exposed. I still have it in quarantine and am treating with small doses of maracyn. Any progression has stopped and it has regained color in its fin, other than on those two rays. For the record, it has only been in my tank alone - never with another fish.

Point being, this sort of thing can happen relatively fast and there can be a couple of reasons for tail/fin rot to begin and progress.