Help - I sliced my discus' dorsal while pruning plants!

[Michael61]

I can't believe this!!! I'm pruning a big plant in my 135 gal jungle. As I cut a leaf, I feel the sissors shake and see my prized 7" male snakeskin pigeon blood run away with his formally magnificant sail of a dorsal sliced down to the body!!!!! I couldn't see him behind that plant and had no idea he was there. I feel terrible. I'm not really concerned about infection, but I'll keep an eye & can deal with that through isolation and melafix if needed. Any chance that it will heal & rejoin? I must say - doesn't look that way from here. Dorsal stands up straight up to the point where it's cut and then big section lays flacid behind the slice. Several dorsal spines are just cut through. :'(

Michael

[daninthesand]

Michael.

So sorry about this mishap. I doubt very much the cut part that is hanging will rejoin. It will likely die and fall off since there is no reason for it to survive. The part that has not been severed may remain, but i would deifinitely keep an eye out for secondary infections.

It might be wise to isolate this poor fellow and watch him closely.

The loss of the dorsal fin in itself will not kill this fish, but untreated infection definitely will!

I have no experience with this but I have heard of fins regenerating in time. Maybe you will see this happen here.

Good luck.

Daniel

[Francisco_Borrero]

It is very hard to say without seeing a picture (despite your description), but I have dealt a couple of times with wilds that came to me in very mangled shapes, including very torn fins.
If the cut was just soft tissue between 2 rays, it will rejoin with time and be almost if not as good as new. If rays were cut across, and it is the SOFT rays (rear portion of dorsal fin), then some regeneration will occur to the ray itself (less good if it is several cut rays), and may or not be noticeable. Depending on the color of the fin it may be very noticeable, or just barely. It it was in the spines (hard rays at the forward part of dorsal), these will not rejoin, but the tissue around them usually does. In time, one will end with a fish that is healthy but looks as if it has a punk hair-do in place of a dorsal fin. A bummer, but the fish should be unaffected.
So, there are several possible scenarios and only time will tell. The important part is to not allow secondary problems to settle in.
Good luck. Cheers, Francisco.
P.S. Regardless of the type and severity of the cut, i would add some salt to help with the healing process.

[DarkDiscus]

Michael,

OW! That's too bad. I agree with Francisco - the further back on the dorsal the better the chance of recovery. In young fish you can usually expect a more thorough recovery of fin damage.

If you cut the hard rays up front, he's going to have a hard time regenerating the damage. If he's a breeding specimen, it's not a big deal as it shouldn't effect his production. If he's purely a show specimen in a show tank, I think he's not going to be as impressive as before, I'm sorry to say.

Do you have any pics?

John

[Michael61]

Thanks guys. I'll see if I can get a picture of him later. He's doing fine - behavior, eating etc. normal. No signs of infection at the slice. Yes, I did cut the actual dorsal spines not just the soft tissue between the spines, so I doubt anything much will grow back. It will be interesting to see what happens to the hanging severed spines and soft dorsal tissue behind the slice. The cut is about midway back on the dorsal so it is very much where the hard spines are and since those spines run in somewhat of an arc - rather than straight verticle, there were several that were severed. Yes, he is the major display fish in the tank. Off to stud now I guess!! I only have one female and she's paired off with his brother in another tank. (Major egg eaters but that's another story) Perhaps I'll switch the brothers around now and hope she takes a liking to the brother with the split dorsal!! Oh Well!!

Michael

[brewmaster15]

Hi Michael,
Sorry to hear it! There is hope though. I remember a discus guy awhile back... might have been KENO? had a fish with its dorsal fin pretty much lobed off by fin rot?ammonia burn? He showed a before and after pic, where it pretty much healed. You never know ! Good luck!

Post pic if you can.

-al

ps...
Don't feel bad, I clean algae with a razor blade and partially decapitated (actually-demouth-atated) a pleco once as it hid behind a plant... :)

[Fish_Fin-atic]

Yeah, don't feel so bad Micheal, we all do something like this once in a while. (I know I shouldn't laugh at Brew's mishap, but I can't help myself! :-X ) If it makes you feel any better, I once gave my best fish a "hickie" with the siphon hose, just when I turned around for a split second, he swam into it and his body just got sucked right up to it :o He's okay now, and hopefully, your fish will be okay eventually, but based on your description...I wouldn't plan on entering him into any beauty pagents any time soon. 8)

[hunterbeav]

Bummer I know you feel bad doing that to your prize fish. I know how I would feel. You could got to old faithful add salt. :)

[Michael61]

Thanks guys. I do feel terrible. I've kept fish my whole life and never really got attached to any individual in the sense of a pet until I started keeping discus. I raised this guy from a baby (from Cary Strong - I hope he's not reading this!!) and he's so big, formerly beautiful and tame that its hard to not think of him as a pet. On the positive side, he seems unbothered and healthy. Could be worse. Thanks for the help. I have so much technology but still no digital camera - I'll try to borrow one to snap a picture - would be useful to see how things progress too.

Michael

[Michael61]

I was actually checking this thread to see how long ago I did the damage and figured I'd follow up with a progress report.

The healing ahs been incredible. He has regrown about 1/2 the length of the hard spines that were severed. The soft tissue is also regenerating between the regrown spines but does not match the dark color of the other neighboring soft tissue.. at least not yet - it does seem to be darkening. BAsed on this, I'd say he will make a full recovery, but of course he still has a great deal of severed tissue and spines that are kind of bunched aft of the area that is healing. The base of the V (regenerating tissue on the head side of the V and dead tissue on the tail side) does appear to be healing - the V is not nearly as deep as it was and the dorsal is rejoining, but I can't imagine it healing all of the way up as there is all of that seemingly dead tissue on the tail side of the cut. I wish I had taken some pictures as it would make an interesting time sequence. We'll see what happens next!

Michael

[oodi]

Michael,

That is great news!!! I have a female RT that had her dorsal fin damaged due to my male BT being so agressive with her. Needless to say, they aren't tank mates anymore. After hearing your news, I'm hoping her fin will repair itself.

Judi
:)

[DarkDiscus]

Michael,

I was just telling your story to a friend the other day. He said that he had chopped a big piece out of one of his fishes caudal fin and it grew back for the most part, including the rays.

So maybe there is hope! Things certainly sound better than I expected!

Keep us up to date.

John

[ChloroPhil]

Check out the most recent issue of Practical Fish Keeping, a british publication. Someone wrote a whole article on discus fin regeneration using Potassium permanganate and salt baths.

It's not for the faint of heart or fanatic....the author actually cut the dorsal and anal fins off a fish to do/prove the study......letter to the editor?