Archie's tail is disintegrating. And dorsal!

[BettaMomma]

oh my LORDY...
well, that was the most stressful 5 minutes of my life in a LONG time.

I decided to give ARchie a salt dip tonight.
He only lasted about 5 minutes in the dip.
He started breathing with is gills spread REALLY wide out and he was blowing air bubbles out his gills from the bottom of the container he was being dipped in. it was very odd.

So, I took him out.
When I put him back into his nice newly cleaned tank with stresscoat and tetracycline in it, he dropped to the bottom (with some PRETTY major stress bars going on) and just sat there, dazed. I watched him for a few minutes then he sort of snapped out of it and went back to black, and started swimming around normally. EGADS.

I'm hoping that his 5 minute bath did at least some good..
I just gave him a few treats and I'm going to leave him alone now.
He seems to be getting along just fine now.
Jeez Leweeez.

 

[cation]

Yikes, that's a lot of medding for a torn tail...

You really may want to look into IAL or silver for tail biters. Constantly giving them the heavy stuff isn't a great idea. To be honest, it doesn't even look like fin rot to me, looks like he's bitten it or gotten it caught on something. Fin rot is an actual disease, not just a term for a damaged tail.

I use salt and/or IAL and/or silver for problems like that. Why pull out the big gun meds for a situation where there appears to be no infection? When you're concerned about preventing infection, use a preventative, not a "big gun" med.

 

[BettaMomma]

I used the meds upon the recommendation of somebody on the forum.
His tail actually looks better today, I'm guessing because of the clean water and the salt dip.

I know it's not really such a good idea to stop meds after only one dose - but should I not continue w/the tetracycline?

I don't think he's caught his tail on anything - there's not much he could have caught it on. I suppose it's possible he could have been biting it but i've been watching him vigilantly, and i haven't yet seen him bite it. Ther'es no filter in his tank so it didn't get sucked in that way.

cation- in your opinion, what should I do from this point?

OH, and what is IAL?

 

[newfishies]

IAL is indian almond leaf. it makes the water similar to what they would be swimming in in the wild. it's basically a dried leaf froma certain kind of tree.

his tail looks a lot like my kyuck and chagi's tails whe they were in a divided/filtered 5 gal tank. i never really figured out if they were chewing their own tail, each other's tails of if it was the current, but once i put them in their own separate 1 gal tanks, the tails recovered.

 

[cation]

What's your gravel like? Is it totally smooth, or kinda rocky?

 

[GSD]

Try a salt bath and stress coat.dimming the lights abit i think helps to relax fishies

 

[BettaMomma]

I just switched his gravel over to really smooth little pea-rocks. I wondered if the rocks I used to have him on were part of the problem - it was that nasty kind of gravel you find at walmart that's blue or turquoise...

Switching it over should help I would assume...

I've also got stress coat in his water - I used that instead of my regular dechlorinator last night. I'll maybe try giving him another salt bath either later or tomorrow, depending on how he's looking. The bath was REALLY stressful for him last night. but we'll see.

And thanks a bunch everyone for helping me out, I really do appreciate it

 

[cation]

I wouldn't give him another bath at this point. Stressing him out is unneeded IMO. Stresscoat and a pinch of salt, and see how he does with that new smooth gravel. The pointy stuff can be murder on fins.

 

[Kiarra]

Another option you may consider is Blackwater Extract, if you can find any. The brand I have is marketed by TetraAqua. It serves much the same function as Indian Almond Leaves. I had a male whose tail was starting to look like that of your poor boy's there, and so I did 100% water changes every day for several days, adding Blackwater Extract and aquarium salt with each water change, and it cleared up quickly. That stuff has saved the life of more than one of my fish.