Treatment resistant fin rot in guppies. Potential med?

[emeraldking]

It's not fin rot?? What about with the other males? Because their tails don't stay the same ragged shape, it gets worse over time

The yellow snakeskin male is deformed now, yes. I bought him as an adult in mid-2020, so he's at least two years old now. Can they get deformed like that through aging? Because he wasn't deformed like that when I bought him of course, wouldn't have bought him if he was.

If it isn't fin rot, what do think might be going on with them? Because something is wrong, and I can't figure out what it is

My reply was based on the yellow male. But if I look at the other guppies, yes their tails look ragged. But to me it doesn't look like finrot. It seems more like it grew like this at some point. And it could be that they carry the same swallow gene as the yellow male.

But also if those guppies came from a mix of different tail shapes, the tails can become ragged as well.

I'm not sure but did guppies die after the tail got more ragged? For that's unclear to me.

Well yes, old age can deform a guppy (but also other kinds of fish).

 

[Colin_T]

The yellow snakeskin male is deformed now, yes. I bought him as an adult in mid-2020, so he's at least two years old now. Can they get deformed like that through aging? Because he wasn't deformed like that when I bought him of course, wouldn't have bought him if he was.

Yes fish can become deformed with old age, same as any animal and people. They can health issues that cause curvature of the spine, internal growths that can change the external appearance of the body.

--------------------

Older photos to show more, most of these boys have passed away now
View attachment 153349

The yellow male in this picture does appear to have fin rot on the lower part of the tail where the fin rays are exposed.
Were the fin rays exposed like that when you got the fish?

 

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

My reply was based on the yellow male. But if I look at the other guppies, yes there tails look ragged. But to me it doesn't look like finrot. It seems more like it grew like this at some point. And it could be that they carry the same swallow gene as the yellow male.

But also if those guppies came from a mix of different tail shapes, the tails can become ragged as well.

I'm not sure but did guppies die after the tail got more ragged? For that's unclear to me.

Well yes, old age can deform a guppy (but also other kinds of fish).

I'm sorta glad you think that it might be their natural tail shapes, since I thought so too for a long time, which is why I was slow to realise there was a problem. At least I'm not awful for not noticing sooner! A lot of these young males, like the cobra one, DO come from that now deformed yellow male, and are also related to the swallow tailed female in the above pics, who definitely retained the same tail shape throughout her life. I mixed tail shapes, had mainly delta tails until I introduced that yellow male, but that female (and her sisters who had similar tails) was produced long before I got him, so had some other tail shaped genes in the mix too.

But yes, some are definitely losing some of their tails before dying, I had to euthanise one the other day that was struggling hard and clearly not going to recover.

I've also never heard of a natural tail shape that would split the tail into strips like this one male, who had a normal delta tail until this began to happen (dark body red tail, right)

Dark body red tail, centre;

 

[itiwhetu]

I believe that these fish have nothing wrong with them other than there is some fin nipping going on amongst the males. These fish are getting older as well so there will be some natural fin degeneration as the fish age.

 

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

I believe that these fish have nothing wrong with them other than there is some fin nipping going on amongst the males. These fish are getting older as well so there will be some natural fin degeneration as the fish age.

Thank you, perhaps there really is some fin nipping going on that I'm just not seeing happen.

Not all of the fish in here are elderly though. The deformed male is the oldest, and elderly by guppy standards, but many, like my favourites the cobra and red/purple boy I bred myself, and are less than a year old.

 

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

If it does turn out to be a combination of natural genetic fin shapes and fin nipping, that would certainly explain why no med I've tried has touched this!

But the consensus, even among experts like Colin and Emerald King seems to be split... although I realise that it's hard to tell when just going by photos, and not the greatest photos either. Sorry, I tried my best to clear shots, but fish photography is never easy.

 

[Naughts]

Treatments for fin rot:

• phenoxyethanol (eg. https/www.kingbritish.co.uk/product/king-british-fin-rot-fungus-control#:~:text=Overview-,King British Fin Rot & Fungus Control is a veterinary medicine,use in coldwater & tropical aquariums.)
• aquarium salt
• tea tree
• formalin or antibiotics via food [if it reaches body] (eg. https://apcpure.com/product/formald...MIpKyavOHc9QIVDertCh2KrgNPEAQYAiABEgLFGvD_BwE)

Fin rot as a symptom of other diseases:
1) Slime disease - unlikely as caused by poor water quality and overcrowding or

2) Guppy disease - also effects angels, betta.
Listless, rapid breathing, difficulty swimming, erosion of fins including rays and spines, white areas, maybe 'lifted' scales, death.
Treatments:

• potassium permanganate
• THEN malachite green, methylene blue, formalin or copper sulphate
• aquarium salt

Other option, as already discussed, lay off the meds and keep them in very clean water. The break could stabilise them.

Final thought - is the GH high enough to avoid being a contributing stress/ environmental factor?

indicates already tried

 

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

Fin rot as a symptom of other diseases:
1) Slime disease - unlikely as caused by poor water quality and overcrowding or

2) Guppy disease - also effects angels, betta.
Listless, rapid breathing, difficulty swimming, erosion of fins including rays and spines, white areas, maybe 'lifted' scales, death.
Treatment:

• potassium permanganate
• THEN malachite green, methylene blue, formalin or copper sulphate
• aquarium salt

Other option, as already discussed, lay off the meds and keep them in very clean water. The break could stabilise them.

Final thought - is the GH high enough to avoid being a contributing stress/ environmental factor?

Thank you so much! They've been slowly raised from being in the middling GH tank of 144ppm (but still within acceptable range for guppies) to my natural tapwater GH of 253pmm, and most were raised in the hardwater tank, so I don't think GH has contributed. Thank you so much for your input! You can see why I'm struggling I'm sure

 

[Colin_T]

What are you feeding them?
Perhaps add more variety to their diet to try and help boost their immune system.

Waterlife Cuprazin might be something to try. Copper is normally used to treat external protozoan parasites but it kills most things, including shrimp and snails so they need to be moved before treatment.

But give them a few months without medications and see if they improve or go downhill. If they do get worse, you can post some pictures and we might notice something that hasn't shown up in earlier pictures.

 

[Naughts]

You can see why I'm struggling I'm sure

Yes. We are not vets and fish disease is complex. You have tried all the usual advice and there is no telling which med might work, with the added worry that the wrong medication just stresses them more.
Hope you see some improvement soon

 

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

What are you feeding them?
Perhaps add more variety to their diet to try and help boost their immune system.

Waterlife Cuprazin might be something to try. Copper is normally used to treat external protozoan parasites but it kills most things, including shrimp and snails so they need to be moved before treatment.

But give them a few months without medications and see if they improve or go downhill. If they do get worse, you can post some pictures and we might notice something that hasn't shown up in earlier pictures.

Thank you for your help!

I don't think diet is the problem, I've always fed a variety, and all but one of them are ones I raised. Only the yellow was bought from a shop, so since they were fry, they've been a variety of foods.

Live - Microworms and baby brine shrimp
Frozen - A mix depending on what I can get, but mainly daphnia, cyclops, moina etc. Small ones for the small fish. Never tubifex since reading about it here! lol
Dry - Bug Bites microgranules mainly, occasional quality flake food.

The tank they're in at the moment is one I'm planning to take down, so I've moved almost all of the shrimp out already, fortunately, other than a few stragglers I've gradually catching and moving. But there are a lot of MTS in there, so I can sift those out of the sand before treatment so a mass die off doesn't cause an ammonia spike. I have an aquarium gravel raking/sifting thing that works brilliantly for sifting them out of the sand.

I'll give them a good break and try to feed them up while they're on this break from meds. It's been a couple of weeks since they went through the pimafix/melafix treatment. Do you think they might benefit from a low dose salt treatment in the meantime, since they're guppies? Or would that stress them too and better just to keep up frequent fresh water changes?

Remove plants before treatment in case the plants absorb treatment too? As @Lajos_Detari suggested? I have some fake plants and decor I can replace them with so the fish still have cover to hide in and can feel secure.

 

[Happilyretired]

Have been dealing with very slow moving fin rot (I assume it's fin rot, have tried everything to rule other things out) for more than a year now. Has only affected my male guppies, not any short-finned fish.

Started when I got this male, and @emeraldking saw pics of him and taught me about the ribbon tail gene, which gives the tail a more ragged, uneven looking edge.
View attachment 153302This photo was taken in July 2020, soon after I got him. Now, I'm wondering whether he had the early stages of fin rot.

He's still alive today, but really not looking good. Photo taken today;
View attachment 153306But I also had fish like this female in my colonies;

View attachment 153305Who definitely did not have fin rot, so I assume was a proper ribbon tail? What do you think, @emeraldking ? She maintained that distinctive shape to her tail for her entire life. So I knew I had uneven edged fin genetics in my bloodlines, and was slow to recognise that there was a problem, unfortunately.

Sadly, because I had a male only tank, including him before I knew it was fin rot, I now have several males who are affected to different degrees. Have also lost several. They can live with minimal damage for months, or like him, for more than a year! Or it can progress relatively quickly, eating away at their tails. Had to euthanise one yesterday, because he was staying on the bottom breathing hard, his tail almost completely gone. I hate that I think of this as the doomed to die tank now (they're no longer with the pygmy cories, or any other livestock). These are the males I kept when I stopped breeding livebearers, my favourites, and the adults I'd bought to produce the fry, so I'm attached to these individual fish, and has been breaking my heart to see them slowly lose their tails, then having to euthanise when it's become severe. Sometimes the edges get worn away, or look as though they've had chunks taken out of them, and sometimes they split into ribbons.

Hate having to euthanise, but when I left one to pass naturally, it took days in which he stayed on the bottom of the tank gasping. Euthanising was better than letting them suffer, but it's also very hard on me. They would be such beautiful fish without this horrible thing destroying their tails, and eventually killing them
Here are pics of the others, all taken today;
View attachment 153308View attachment 153309View attachment 153310View attachment 153312View attachment 153313View attachment 153314

I have tried everything I could think of to try to heal these fish. Spent a small fortune on different medications at different times, done daily large water changes, kept up with increased water changes every few days, and I'm on top of tank maintenance and water parameters. Tanks are long established and heavily planted, lightly stocked and over filtered 60 L tank, ammonia 0, nitrite 0, nitrates rarely get above 10ppm. These guys until fairly recently were also living with my pygmy corydora colony, who have been breeding non-stop for the last year. Pygmies show no signs of any problems, and are happy enough with the water quality that they never stop spawning, with the fry raising themselves in the tank. It's not a water quality/maintenance issue.

I'm so frustrated and upset, because it often feels as though they're just doomed. I've used eSHa 2000, eSHa gdex, eSHa ndx, with no improvement. Even did a very extended course of the eSHa 2000, as the medication suggests for difficult to treat problems. Tried MB too.

Most recently I've tried Pimafix and Melafix at the same time. Did nothing but leave an oily sheen on the surface of the water.

Today I saw mention of a medication I've never heard of before, called Waterlife Myaxin

Waterlife Myxazin 250ml - Anti Bacterial, Fin Rot, Ulcers & White Spot

Water Treatment Fin Rot, Body Rot, Ulcers, Sores and Other Bacterial Infections in aquariums

www.pro-shrimp.co.uk

Anyone have any experience or thoughts on this medication? I've already spent a lot of money on meds, and this feels sorta fruitless to spend another £10-11 and put them through yet another round of medication, when nothing seems to be touching it. Feeling like throwing good money after after bad, when I'm only on a carers income. But if there's a decent chance it could help, I'll definitely be willing to get it! It hurts my heart to see them like this, and feel so powerless to help them!

Or if anyone has any other suggestions, I'd really welcome any input at all!

I used it with one of my guppies whose fins were badly messed up and she was very bloated, lying on her side and I thought about ending her suffering but instead put her in a bowl not too deep, then I put the Melafix in the water and left her for three hours, cleaned the sick tank and added a little salt, put her back in the sick tank with more melafix and today she is swimming and eating and her fins are improving greatly. I thought she was bloated because of her air bladder(probably wrong term), that’s why I shallow water treated her. I did another treatment today and got a real close look at her and the bloating is gone and her fins are looking clean. I thought she was going to die for sure. I also treated my tank where she lives after changing 75% of the water.

 

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

The yellow male in this picture does appear to have fin rot on the lower part of the tail where the fin rays are exposed.
Were the fin rays exposed like that when you got the fish?

Sorry, I somehow missed this question! I didn't see exposed fins when I got him, but he came from a pretty packed tank of identical fish, and since they have those ragged edged fins naturally, I may have missed early stage fin rot when looking at them easily. I did look over LFS tanks carefully, looking for any signs of weakness or disease (and sometimes, in one store, seeing a tank with every disease you can think of, all in one batch of guppies...! )

Looking for photos now of when I first got him;
These were taken 23/07/2020, when I first bought him home and released into tank after QT, he looked healthy to me, and no exposed fin rays that I can see, so it has to be fin rot, right? But living with it since July 2020?

27th September 2020;

July 2010, can see is when it seems to set in. So perhaps it came in with a different fish, though I think I'd stopped buying guppies by then.

Still July 2021, but clearer photo, and you can see the edges of the tail of the other male are going too;

And the photos taken yesterday;

Is it even possible for them to live with fin rot for that long without dying? Or has good water quality and diet kept it at bay, so that it's there, but hasn't progressed further? I can't imagine another disease or illness that could be causing this and progressing at different rates though either. Some younger fish have matured, got their fins, got ragged fins and died in the time this male has been alive. Perhaps it really is fin-nipping and I've just not seen it? But would fin nipping leave the rays exposed like that?

This is a very confusing problem! I can't easily separate them either, since if it is a disease, I don't want it spreading to other tanks, even though they were living with the pygmy before, with no problems with the pygmies.

I do have a little 15L ciano cube tank that I bought only because it was a fiver, and planned to use it to propagate plants, and perhaps keep some shrimp in it. I could try setting it up and isolating one male, see whether his fins improve?

 

[coriesinhawaii]

I can’t say whether or not it’s fin rot but if you decide to treat again you could try Seachem’s Paraguard. I’m pretty sure it’s available in the UK and would be worth a try for fin rot in earlier stages that is only external (hasn’t moved inside the body yet). It’s mild on fish too compared to other treatments and doesn’t harm the biological filter.

 

[coriesinhawaii]

Voogle supplement is good as well to boost fish’s immune system