Arowana Tail Gone

[gandalf]

Hi

Sorry for posting a non discus thread. But I just checked on my 2 inch pearl arowana and saw that its tail fin is gone. I was medicating the tank with medicine for anti fungus/ anti itch and noticed that the arowanas tail fin was damaged, i did not check on it for a few days and today when i looked the entire tail fin is gone !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!will the tail fin grow back or will the fish be without its tail fin for life ?

[Lauren]

my first inclination is that fin rot took over, and had a grand opportunity to because you were using anti-fungals. Fin rot is (normally?)a bacterial infection. Try some MelaFix, its safe and so far I've only heard good things about it - and if for some odd reason its not fin rot, it wont counteract with any other illnesses I believe.

Also, is it possible you killed the bio filter with whatever you were treating them with? Do some major water changes, and make sure that filter is OK
Lauren

[M0oN]

Arowanna are really sensitive to most medications, it oculd be that the medicine you administered burned it's tail off, if not then fin rot can be cured without the use of any heavy medicines.

Like Lauren said, lots of water changes and MelaFix should help it to grow back fairly quick, be sure ammonia and nitrite are both at 0 in the tank and keep nitrate low, feed it good healthy foods and perform daily water changes for a few weeks...

[gandalf]

thanks for the replies. but whats melafix ?

[wildthing]

whether or not it will grow back depends on how far the tail is missing.....
I keep a few silver arrows, & while I don;t know too much about them I can tell you they seem to be nearly bulletproof. How did it lose the tail? good water conditions should help. I am not a fan of melafix but it won;t hurt. Salt also works

[M0oN]

MelaFix is just green tea oil or somthing like that, it helps to produce slime coat and acts sort of like neosporin does for people, other items to try that probably work just as well would be things like stress coat, bio coat etc.