# Hanalei's Fin Rot Diary Part 1



## Hanalei (Mar 1, 2011)

I have a cycled 10 gallon tank with good water parameters. Added the first fish: a male and two sunset swordtails a week ago. One of the females died after 2.5 days--appeared to be severely constipated. Replaced with a female tuxedo swordtail which was doing fine for the first 3.5 days until this morning when it showed early signs of fin rot. After considering a lot of options, here's the treatment I've decided on:

Metafix Antibacterial
Salt (starting with just 1 teaspoon for the 10 gallons)
Temp. increase to 80 degrees (usually 74 - 76)

Will keep you posted on progress or lack thereof as there is a lot of contradictory info out there about the various products, use of salt, etc. and this is a problem a lot of us beginners will probably face eventually.


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## Revolution1221 (Apr 20, 2010)

ive always had tremendous luck with marycin pluss the melafix usually works better as preventing disease from being transmitted and not so good at actually treating diseases. although its all natural so it is a lot safer for the fish. I had a knight goby at work completely missing its dorsal fin due to fin rot and marycin pluss brought it back with in no time.


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## Hanalei (Mar 1, 2011)

*Hanalei's Fin Rot Diary Part 2*

So far so good. The female tuxedo seems improved today. Yesterday she was tending to clamp her tail fin closed and also her dorsal was often clamped down. There are white patches on the tail and side fins, but it doesn't look like the disease has progressed. Today she's got her tail fin fanned open more and the dorsal is also up more. She also seems more active and sociable, though she also spends time wedged in a plant down on the bottom. That behaviour I find worrisome, but then she comes out and seems to be okay.

The two original sunset swordtails seem fine.

They all eat voraciously and spend a lot of their day pecking at rocks, gravel, etc. I feed them "only enough food as they will eat in 2 minutes" twice a day, but I wonder if they maybe need a little more food as they seem perpetually hungry?

Re: the Melafix strategy, I did not want to quarantine the tuxedo as it seemed to me the fin rot was brought on by the stress of moving, so wouldn't it stress her more to move her to a quarantine tank all by herself? I figured it would be better to leave her in surroundings and with the fish she was in the process of getting used to. And since she is staying in the main tank, I did not want to dose the water with antibiotics which would probably kill the beneficial nitrogen cycle bacteria.

Anyway, now that the fin rot seems to have stopped progressing, I'm now hoping to see it regress in the coming days.


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## Hanalei (Mar 1, 2011)

*Hanalei's Fin Rot Diary Part 3*

Although I can't say there has been any regression in the affected areas, the tuxedo seems to be doing a lot better. The dorsal fin is up, the pectorals also are unclamped, and the tail fin is fanned out now. That being the case I now have a better view of the fin rot damage and the pectorals are pretty ragged.

But the little girl is acting like she's feeling tip-top, actively swimming around, exploring, foraging for food, etc. As I mentioned yesterday, they all eat ravenously come feeding time.

I have a 0.25 ammonia reading this a.m. so even though the Metafix directions say do a 25% water change after 7 days, I will probably do a 10% today.

It's good the Metafix seems to have stopped the progression of the fin rot, but of course if I don't see any regression in the next couple days, I'll have to bring in the antibiotics.


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