melafix and fin and tail rot

[louistheloach]

hi all,

I have a 26 g f/w. I have 3 fancy tail guppys, 5 black skirt, 3 loaches, 1 young boesmani, 3 otos and one AE, in a planted tank. It has been set up for around 1.5 yrs. I wont go into the details, but in that time I had lots of problems with lots of bad advice.

Sometime during that time I noticed that a couple of my guppy's tails were light colored along the back edge. I asked a couple of people in my LFS about it but they didnt seem to think it was anything. I then assumed it was due to the water issues, (parameters too high) So I have been researching and working on getting that right.

Their tails kept getting worse and I notice a few months ago that even the BS's were affected. Still going on the previous advice I continued to work on the water and watched to see if it got better. I recently questioned a different source and they assured me that it was not the water, but fin and tail rot. It surprised me a little because it has been such a slow progressing thing. At different times I looked at pics and info on line and it just didnt seem to match up with what I was seeing. The articles always seemed to talk about a more rapidly progressing disease.

I have now accepted that it is (the resource said it could be a more slowly progressing disease) and have treated the tank for 1 week with melafix. Here are my questions:

Does the melafix interfere with plant growth? It seems like while I was treating, I got no pearling and now there is more algae....in fact BBA

Some of the fish look like there has been some regrowth of the fins, but the one bs (who I did not realize had as much damage as he had) seems like during that week of treatment, the portion that was affected (mainly just split fins but not any disintegration-they are highfins) now has disintegrated off. Not further than the original splits. Does that seem reasonable that once the bacteria on the fins is killed that the infected part will disintegrate before growing back.

Some of the others that did not have it so bad, look as if the splits are starting to close up. They have not really showed signs of stress and have eaten well during this time. The guppy's had it the worse, it is a little hard to tell but it seems like there may be some improvement.

I am wondering how long I should wait to decide to do a second treatment or if one is even necessary since there does appear to be regrowth?

Also are there any precautions or changes I should do with my planted tank to prevent an outbreak of algae. My tank is a moderate growth tank with 2 really nice watersprites, some jungle valisneria, red ludwigia, 1 sm anubia, 1 sword (that transparent-like variety), anacharis, 1 cryptocoryne, dwarf sag subulata, and 1 dwarf baby tears. I also notice during the treatment time that I was getting that deep blue green sheet like algae (like what i see at petsmart) on the baby tears.

Thank you for considering this.

[louistheloach]

tommygun,

thank you for your reply. One other question that I had was in regard to the melafix itself and the result that i noticed on a couple of the fish.

I had one guppy and one bs tetra that had the most damage to their fins. After treating with the melafix for a week, more of their fins seemed to disintegrate off, as opposed to the other fish who seemed to show regrowth and I wondered if it was reasonable to assume that since these two had it the worst of all the fish, would the infected area fall off like that before showing more regrowth signs.

the AE I only recently got but have not noticed any aggression toward any particular fish. On occasion he will kind of chase one away, but there are enough plants and such that they dont often cross paths, and I am able to spend quite a bit of time observing them.

Also if these fish have been fighting fin and tail rot for a year and the treatment seemed to help some of the fish, how long should I wait for the other two that had more damage to decide if they need another treatment. I dont want to overmedicate, but I would like to get it cleared up.

thank you so much for your help. I do understand the parameters around which suggestions are given in this forum. But I appreciate learning from other peoples experiences also.

Also, thank you for the suggestion about the planted tank subforum.