Clamping one fin

[Shiverz]

Hello,
It's been a while since I last posted here, but my little buddy seems to be in need of aid.

Around a week ago, I noticed a tear in his right fin, I performed a water change and have been keeping an eye on it. Though now he has a smaller tear below that one, though this time it seems the lower tear appears fluffy (at very close inspection). I only have real plants and one piece of driftwood, I made sure there were no sharp edges too, so the tears origin are a bit of a mystery.

I'm toying with the idea that it is cotton fin fungus. Though honestly it's come about so quickly that I'm slightly dubious. He's still very social with us and swims up to the tank glass anytime we're near, I know you can't tell a fish's happiness but he seems content and is still eating all of his food.

The water gets changed ever week ranging from a 30-50% water replacement, sand is vacuumed, and plants fed. Algae is scraped when needed.

All in all I do my best to keep the tank free from as much detritus and nastiness as possible without going overboard. He is due another clean today, I'm thinking a 50% see if that helps.

Other information, he's in a fifteen gallon tank by himself, I need to get an air filter for him but moneys tight right now so instead I created a baffle to decrease water flow with his internal filter. He recently had some shop bought daphnia. He doesn't seem to be itching his fins, though he is sleeping a little more than usual (or that could just be me reading into this too much).

I've attached picture of his fin, his colour seems less striking too. (ignore the floating thermometer, it only stays on for about half hour and pops off, I should remove it from the tank or wedge it somewhere).

 

[Sunnyspots]

You could try using salt for a couple of weeks, see if it heals up?

 

[Sunnyspots]

What to do if your fish gets sick

If your fish ever looks sick or unwell, then the following steps might help. Test the Water and Clean the Tank. Test the water quality for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and pH and write the results down in numbers. Check it for general hardness (GH) and carbonate hardness (KH) too if you can, but...

www.fishforums.net

At the end of this there is a description of how to do it.

 

[Shiverz]

I'm going to give it one day and see if there definitely is some fluff. Sometimes I look at it and it just seems like a recent tear. I honestly have no idea how he's injured himself. Thanks for the reply and information, I'll certainly treat him should things not improve.

 

[Colin_T]

I can't see any fungus but salt is always a good start when dealing with possible minor infections.
Just use 1 heaped tablespoon of rock salt (aquarium salt) for every 20 litres of water. Keep salt in tank for 2 weeks and see how it looks after that.

You can also do a big water change and gravel clean every day for a week to try and reduce the number of disease organisms in the water. The combination of salt and water changes will heal lots of things.

 

[Shiverz]

Just a short update.

Shoto's tear seemed to have widened but the fluff I thought I originally saw seemed to have disappeared (even though with the naked eye it was still difficult to see originally). I performed a water change and Shoto was happy was eating plenty and still coming up to my hand and my face to say hello. I thought that matter was getting better but nonetheless I kept an eye on him.

Today it seems there is fluff on his fin (again, I've included a picture of this, it was the best I could get) it's at the tip of the lower most part of his fin. I'll be paying a visit to the local store and grabbing some sea salt to begin treatment for him. I've still not determined what originally caused the tear, which is baffling me, but I'll get to the bottom of it no doubt.

I can keep you updated along the way should you want me too. I thank you both for your help and hopefully we'll see a speedy recovery in my little buddy.
Edit
Also if any of you have keen eyes, I do have a problem with my plants they're growing roots out of their stem. After the treatment I will be trying to split them up further for equal light distribution to hopefully combat this, but as of now I don't want to mess with anything with Shoto in his current state.

 

[Colin_T]

Aquatic plants regularly grow roots out of the stems and it's completely normal and nothing to worry about.

You can use rock salt, aquarium salt or swimming pool salt for the fish.

 

[Shiverz]

Aquatic plants regularly grow roots out of the stems and it's completely normal and nothing to worry about.

You can use rock salt, aquarium salt or swimming pool salt for the fish.

Sea salt is what I picked up and used for medication. I've done the first treatment, obviously no improvement has been seen (as it has only been less than 24 hours). I will continue treatment as directed, I'll drop another update in a couple of days to let you know my next steps.

updates/Edit
Shoto seems a lot more lethargic when me and my partner are not near his tank. he seems to go under his "lean to rock" and can stay there for 30-60 minutes at a time before swimming around for a minute then sleeping again. When me and my partner approach the tank he is more than happy to come up and say hi and is still eating all of his food (betta bio gold pellets for the morning and some tetra betta flakes which contain shrimps and krill in the evening).

I was scraping some algae off the side of the tank (which I overlooked yesterday) and Shoto came swimming up to me to greet me like always, and the fluff on his fin simply fell off as he was darting towards me, I'm not sure if this is relevant or important to know but I thought I'd mention it nonetheless.

 

[Colin_T]

If it was fungus that came off the fin after salt was put in the water, it might be the salt is helping

 

[Shiverz]

Update

Shoto is still lethargic today, he still greets us anytime we get close to the tank, but as soon as we're not near he slinks off and finds some place to rest. The growth on his fin has completely receded to the point I can no longer see it. I'm just concerned about his behaviour and I hope there isn't any underlying conditions that is causing his lethargy. I'm sticking with the treatment until the treatment period is up, then I'll begin slowly doing the water changes.

 

[Shiverz]

Final update (I hope)

Shoto is back to his usual self, he's swimming round his tank like he once did, gliding through his leaves, all in all he seems content (as far as I can tell). There is no sign of any "fluff" or growth on his fin, and he is no longer clamping it either, in fact he uses it just as much as he used to.

I did find two small protruding splinters of wood on his drift wood, for the mean time I've stuck my moss balls on them to stop Shoto getting to them and cause any further damage, I will be snipping these off when I do a large water change.

The water change will happen soon, as I've decided to start filtering out the salt now. Is this a good idea or should I still stick it out for a few more days? I ask this because his situation has been improved for a few days now. I did my first small water change today and Shoto was making my life difficult as usual, I'm just glad he's no longer down in the dumps! I've attached a picture to show you progress on his fin. Thank you for all your help guys!

 

[Colin_T]

Keep salt in there for 2 weeks or at least 1 week after the wounds have healed, so any wounds can heal properly. Sometimes the problem doesn't heal completely and people stop using salt and it comes back but is harder to treat.

After that, do small water changes each day for a week to slowly dilute the salt out. Then increase the water changes a bit the following week. Then go back to bigger water changes.

 

[Shiverz]

Okay, I'll add some salt to replace the salt lost in the water change earlier on today. Then I'll keep the treatment going for another week.

Thank you again for all your help.