[ridley25]

Hi all,

I just returned from an 8 day vacation (don't worry, I had a fish-sitter) and noticed that my female Tropheops sp. Red Fin has some pretty extensive damage to her tail fin. She's one of three, and while one of the others is certainly a male, I'm beginning to think the third Tropheops may be a young male. He appears to be showing an egg spot.

This is my only tank, so I have no way of isolating her. My question is: if I give her back to the store or start a hospital tank, will munched fins grow back in time?

My tank is 38 gallons and also contains 3 Yellow Labs, one Demasoni and a CAE.

Any advice is appreciated.

kevin

 

[nelson6972]

the fins will grow back in time. when i have had fish beat up (torn fins & scales) i add API salt & stress coat. seems to work well to repair damage to fish.

 

[herny]

yea just get a 10 gallon witha sponge filter and a good qualtly food :fish:

 

[DJRansome]

It won't even take very long...you will see regrowth starting in days. The question is, how will you prevent it from happening again when she returns to the tank. Trade the extra male for additional females?

 

[ridley25]

10 gallon hospital tank being purchased tonight. I assume I can take 8 gallons out of my main tank and put in a fresh (treated) 2 gallons to keep the nitrates down? i.e. no need to cycle?

 

[LuciousLeftFoot]

I would add some substrate and other aquascape from the established tank to help in the bacteria propagation if you don't have an extra filter running. I had to do this plus added some SeaChem Stability as well to help jump start the filter for a grow out tank. I thought I had a small HOB cycled(was running on my main tank for just under 2 weeks) for it but the bioload made the ammonia spike so I had to add some of the established media to the tank to aid in its progress. Fixed it right up when I added that stuff, though it didn't hurt that I was doing daily 50% WC's for the first week and a half. :thumb:

 

[MalawiLover]

10 gallon hospital tank being purchased tonight. I assume I can take 8 gallons out of my main tank and put in a fresh (treated) 2 gallons to keep the nitrates down? i.e. no need to cycle?

Tank water carries little to no bacteria. It is in the filter and on any surface in the tank. You will also have to have a way to filter the small tank. I would get a small HOB like an AC20 or a Tetra whisper filter ( the AC20 is better). You can either take a piece of the media in your regular filter or a small handfull of gravel from the main tank and rinse it out near the intake form the new little filter. That should seed the nes filter nicely. The just keep up on the water changes to keep the nitrates as low as possible and your fish should heal pretty quickly. I keep a new filter pad for my hospital tank filter in the sump of my wet/dry. Whenever I need to hospitalize a fish, I pop it into the HOB on the 10g. If the fish is just injured you can stick the filter pad back in your main tank. However if the fish was sick, I would discard it an place a new one in the main filter for next time.

However, using some water from the main tank will help make sure the other perameters of the water (ph, Gh, etc) are similar to prevent any shock to the fish. You could probably fo 50-50 tank and new water.

 

[ridley25]

Thanks for the advice. I have an Emperor HOB right now that just happens to have filters in both media slots (lucky!), so I'll try to buy a similar, smaller model to help with the bacteria. And I've got gravel to spare.

 

[ridley25]

My bullied Tropheops is resting comfortably in her 10g with a daily dose of MelaFix. She also has a juvenile Bristlenose to keep her company. (It's hard to leave the LFS without a new fish.)
This weekend the male goes back to the LFS. Too much fish for a 38g.
He must have known it was coming - while I removed all the rocks and plants to catch my injured female he managed to spawn with the healthy female - now she's holding.

 

[ridley25]

My bullied Tropheops is back from the hospital tank and the bully is back at the LFS, and everyone seems happy and healthy. It's funny - the week when both the offender and the victim were gone was very quiet in the tank - everyone was hiding. As soon as I transfered my wounded fish from the 10g back to the 38g, it was like a achieved equilibrium again - the tank has come alive.

Thanks all for the advice.

kevin