Fin Injury or Fin Rot? Discoloration on Head?

[Raghild]

I brought this guy home about three weeks ago. He had some red coloration on his head that just looked like his natural color but I wasn't sure because one spot of it was separate and looked like it could possibly be a small sore, and he also had a small kink in one section of one of his fins and he seemed a bit listless at the store, but my three-year-old son wanted that one so we decided to give him a go since there wasn't any other fish in the aquarium he was going to go into if it turned out he was sick.

After we got him home he pepped up really well, been zippy, eating well, built a bubble raft, and other than the small kink in his fin seemed healthy. I went ahead and added a mystery snail and 3 dwarf frogs to his aquarium about five days ago (it's a 10 gallon with filter and heater kept at about 79 degrees). Then yesterday I noticed something didn't look right with one of his fins.

It looked like someone had taken scissors to it and snipped out a wedge, it was a perfectly smooth cut with a bit of redness. I thought it must be a fin injury given the precise nature of the missing bit of fin and no apparent damage to any of his other fins and decided to just keep an eye on it, but this morning it looked more ragged and I took a picture. While looking at the pictures, I can't be sure, but I feel like the redness on his face has spread and doesn't look quite right. All of his colors have really brightened up since we got him home though so it could just be that, but it almost looks like scales are missing.

Anyways, thought I would try some online forums and see what other people thought regarding the fin and head coloration.

(the small piece of his fin that's curled away from the rest is the aforementioned kink he had when we got him)

 

[Colin_T]

Either the frog bit the fish's fin or the frogs/ snail introduced a disease.

Do a 75% water change and gravel clean the substrate every day for a week. This will help to reduce the number of disease organisms in the water and help the fish heal.
Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it's added to the tank.

You can try adding salt but it might adversely affect the frogs. But so will any medication you put in the tank. This is why frogs should not be kept with fish. If the fish get sick, the medications usually kill the frog. If you want to try salt, see directions below. Use 1 heaped tablespoon per 20 litres of water.

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SALT
You can add rock salt (often sold as aquarium salt), sea salt or swimming pool salt to the aquarium at the dose rate of 1 heaped tablespoon per 20 litres of water. If there is no improvement after 48 hours you can double that dose rate so there is 2 heaped tablespoons of salt per 20 litres.

If you only have livebearers (guppies, platies, swordtails, mollies), goldfish or rainbowfish in the tank you can double that dose rate, so you would add 2 heaped tablespoons per 20 litres and if there is no improvement after 48 hours, then increase it so there is a total of 4 heaped tablespoons of salt per 20 litres.

Keep the salt level like this for at least 2 weeks but no longer than 4 weeks otherwise kidney damage can occur. Kidney damage is more likely to occur in fish from soft water (tetras, Corydoras, angelfish, gouramis, loaches) that are exposed to high levels of salt for an extended period of time, and is not an issue with livebearers, rainbowfish or other salt tolerant species.

The salt will not affect the beneficial filter bacteria but the higher dose rate (4 heaped tablespoons per 20 litres) will affect some plants and some snails. The lower dose rate (1-2 heaped tablespoons per 20 litres) will not affect fish, plants, shrimp or snails.

After you use salt and the fish have recovered, you do a 10% water change each day for a week using only fresh water that has been dechlorinated. Then do a 20% water change each day for a week. Then you can do bigger water changes after that. This dilutes the salt out of the tank slowly so it doesn't harm the fish.

If you do water changes while using salt, you need to treat the new water with salt before adding it to the tank. This will keep the salt level stable in the tank and minimise stress on the fish.