Bristlenose Fins Are Rotting Away! :(

Hey everyone

I have had my tropical fish tank set up in my hostel room for about two months now, when I moved it I moved all the old water with it so it didn't go through the new tank syndrome stage. Today when I fed my fish I noticed my two beautiful golden bristlenoses seem to have a fin, both on the left that is rotting away. On one it is obviously just started as he has lost about a quarter of the fin, and the bone is peeking through at the tip, whereas my other one has almost lost the fin/membrane completely and has a long bone showing through. What is the most odd though is the wound has a "fluffy mouldey" look to it. It actually looks like when you drop food in water and leave it for a few days and it turns into a fluffy jelly mess. I don't know when this has happened because I see them every night when I feed them and didn't see it last night Im really upset because It took me so long to find them, and I have grown them since they we about 3 cm big. They are still eating well and swimming fine, but it looks painful. I tried to take pics but my cameras not very good, so I also drew what the fin looks like on the worst one. I have had melafix in the tank the last two days, as I had another sick fish, and I have also had tonic which is a mix of formalin 5% and mythelene blue for the last 3 days. I do water changes every week and ph is fine. My two brown bristlenoses are completely fine. I have also noticed that the yellow bristle noses no longer have see through tails but what looks like a piece of scar tissue on the ends of their tails. I have tried to show it in the pictures. Could this be from fightiing? I have seen my big yellow and my brown jostling each other and pushing each other off the driftwood.

Please help if you can

I had similar I took the fish out and gave it a bath in some mythelene blue for ten minutes when I fished it out to put back in the mian takk I applied some undiluted to the wounded area and then placed it in an egg hatchery chamber placed in the main tank so that if it was bullying related it would stop this and give it time to recover.

Hope that helps a bit.

Are you sure it was not caught in a filter or some such accident?

I would love to put them both into a isolation tank right away but unfortunatly I dont have access to one for another 5 days Im pretty sure its not from the filter or anything, I have an internal filter they cant get caught in. Did your bristlenose recover? As soon as I have my other tank I will isolate them straight away, luckily I have spare filters and heaters. Because the wound site looks fluffy im worried its some sort of fungal infection or bacterial infection, that is eating away at thier fins. Its just so odd it happened to both at the same time. Im hesitant to add salt to the aquarium as Ive heard its not such a good Idea with catfish.
Should I do daily water changes and some melafix? Melafix is a natural antibacterial.
Thank you for your help

I was able to get a good pic of the worst one as he stuck to the glass, do you think it could possibly be a secondary fungal infection?

Lone Wolf said:

I was able to get a good pic of the worst one as he stuck to the glass, do you think it could possibly be a secondary fungal infection?

Click to expand...

Hi again sorry for the late reply.
Yes mine recovered as I say I got them out and using a cotton bud gently applied Methylene blue to the wound to clean it. I'd put them in a small floating egg hatchery or something in the main tank. The fluff is probably fungal but i cannot tell from the pic. I take it water quality is all ok?

are there any fish who may be attacking them?

Just a thought,

It could be fin rot! But that will most likely be through bad water conditions.

Another question are they both males? could be that they are becoming territorial but this is just a guess.