# What causes fint & tail rot?



## AguaDulce (Nov 26, 2005)

Hello. I got 7 clown loaches 4 black skirt tetras, 2 male guppys, and 2 angelfishes on a 55-gallon. and i was wondering what causes fin & tail rot. Cus my angel fishes have it, and 2 of them died cus of it, and it started when i added some API Mela Fix to my water, cus one of my LFS said that would help them get their appitie back, which it did, cus the angel fishes weren't eating almost nothing, untill Mela Fix fixed it, but now this came up, i dont know what to do, but the weird thing is that only my angel fishes have been getting fin & tail rot. Please help. Thank you!


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## Alin10123 (May 22, 2005)

AguaDulce said:


> Hello. I got 7 clown loaches 4 black skirt tetras, 2 male guppys, and 2 angelfishes on a 55-gallon. and i was wondering what causes fin & tail rot. Cus my angel fishes have it, and 2 of them died cus of it, and it started when i added some API Mela Fix to my water, cus one of my LFS said that would help them get their appitie back, which it did, cus the angel fishes weren't eating almost nothing, untill Mela Fix fixed it, but now this came up, i dont know what to do, but the weird thing is that only my angel fishes have been getting fin & tail rot. Please help. Thank you!


Finrot usually starts when one of the fish's fins get nipped by another fish. Then if the water conditions are poor the fins dont heal and eventually starts to get infected all the way until the fin rots away. When the fin finishes rotting away the fish can no longer swim and it dies. You can treat for finrot by using stuff that specifically treats for finrot. I use Maracyn made by Mardel. I use it as directed on the package in a quarantine tank and i also add aquarium salt to the water and turn it up. I've had one case of finrot in the past and the process fixed it up well.


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## fishboy (Feb 26, 2005)

fin rot is mearly a fungus that attacks weakened fin sections. It is only a result of another problem. If your angels continue to get it then their fins are either being nipped or damaged or something is cause their immune systems to fail


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## garfieldnfish (Jan 18, 2005)

Tetras are nippy fish, even so I found my skirt tetras to be less so then my much smaller von rios. But you only have 4 of them. A larger group would be better and it should keep the aggression among them. Also guppies are supposed to be nippy fish, can't tell you from personal experience, never had any. But I see another problem with your set up down the road in the golden algae eater. That is just a color variation of the Chinese algae eater. Once those grow up, they develop a taste for slime coat and your angels will be a likely target. If you don't have a sick/quarantine tank, I would advise you to get another tank just for the angels, treat them in there and if they survive, let them stay in this tank of their own. A combination of maracyn and maracyn II should help. I would keep that tank a bare bottom until the treatment is over (those meds make a mess on anything in the tank and cause the fish to poop a lot) and then add some items (filter material, gravel, even deco, etc.) from your established tank to seed the new one, that would cut the cycling phase to a much shorter time. The golden algae eater should be fine with the rest of your fish. 
I would also add a few more otos, they like each others company. But I have a single one too and it does fine. Mine seems to be a carrier for something unique to otos. Every other oto she came into contact with, died after 2 to 3 months without any signs of illness. So she will remain a single oto (I had her for 2 years) and she seems pretty happy sharing a tank with a bunch of plecos.


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## micstarz (Oct 22, 2005)

a sudden chane in water chemistry or temperature can lower a fish's immune system. Or like alin said, they could be infected nip wounds. I would do water changes once in two days and add aquarium salt.


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## AguaDulce (Nov 26, 2005)

Oh alrght. Yeah its most likely the fin nipping, yeah the tetras did nip ones in a while, espeically at the other smaller angels that i had that died. But the ones i got now are bigger and defend them selfs against the tetras, so i'm guessing the tetras learned their lesson. I've never seen my guppys nip at theri fins, so they are fine. Now what i see and think that are causing most of the nipping are th clowns! They go crazy for the angels fins, esepecially those long thin ones. This hapens when i feed the fish flake foods, the clowns go all the way to the top and eat like the other fish, and they hapen to see the angels fins, and they start chasing them! I've tried to feed the clowns first, i give them their sinking pelets, but they still go up! So i think they are causing most of the fin nipping. About the golden algea eater, i know what they say about it, but i got him accidently  cus i was suppose to get an "otto" at walmart, and so they gave me this one, he is a great algea eater! He is even busyer then the otto. I just hope that it doesn't grow so fast. Well i cant quarantine my angels, i only have 1 main tank. I do plan to get a quarantine tank, but prolly my angels will die by that time. I will try to get the medication. Well thanks alot for the advice!


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## ron v (Feb 24, 2005)

Ammonia burn or ammonia poisioning, from improperly cycling a new tank, will also damage fins. Fin rot can then develop later.


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## AguaDulce (Nov 26, 2005)

hmmm. Ammonia is at 0 and nitrItes 0, its just the nipping...


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