The Puffer Forum

Well, I haven't been around much lately, but I've been trying to fix a hude cyanobacteria problem... now this...
I noticed yesterday that my little female DP has a dent in her tail. She has been more aggressive toward the other 2 males for the last week so I thought she may have gotten nipped. Today I checked on her and the dent is still there and there's a new one. It's slightly whitish around the edge of the dent, it was more obvious yesterday. She doesn't flash her tail much so it's hard to see. I don't think the rest of her tail is ragged. The other 2 DPs have no signs of this. There's been a lot of changes lately, so I'm quite aware she might be stressed and developeed a disease. Any ides what this can be and how to treat it?

Essentail informations:

4) Changes made lately: many! Like I said, I am fighting a huge problem of blue-green algaeso all changes are meant to fix this. I red this web page:
http://www.xs4all.nl/~buddendo/aquarium ... tm#gemeten
I got a phosphate (P) test kit and realised my levels were at 0.5-1.0. In fact, I tested my tap water and it has 0.25ppm of P. My nitrates have always been quite low, nearly zero since the first nitrate peak when cycling got fixed. Yes my tank has been correctly cycled and it has been so for 1 year. I even bought another test kit, and my nitrate levels are really near zero. So that's the perfect ratio for blue-green algae development. So I bought a phosphate buffer to lower the P as much as I can. This goes into the filter and should remove only phosphate. I also bought some Flourish Nitrogen to increase the nitrates, to reach a ratio that would inhibit the cyanobacteria developpment. I know lower nitrates are better for the fish, but I do't think that a coat of slime from blue-green algae all over the aquarium is good for their health neither.
Another change was the addition 2 weeks ago of 6 otos that had been dewormed twice and quarantined only 2 weeks. I had plan to quarantine then 4 weeks, but a sudden cycle crash in the quarantine tank had put rush them to the main tank. So I know disease could come from them. But it's been a total of 4 weeks now and none have died or showed sign of disease. (they did have worms when I got them).

1)Water parameters: Nh3 = 0 ; No2 = 0; No3 = 7.5-10
No3 are a little higher than I had planned, I'm still adjusting the dosage. I am aiming to keep it at 7.

2) Tank is 15G, has 3 DPs, 2 otos and tons of plants.

3) otos are fed cucumber, zucchinis and spirulina tablets. Dps are fed bloosworms and mussels. For the last 3 weeks, it has only been mussels because my LFS hasn't received the bloodworms yet (yes, I live in a far away small town!).
A 50-75% WC is done weekly.
Products used:
For the plants: Flourish Excel (Co2), Flourish and flourish Iron
For the blue-green algae: Phosphate buffer and Flourish Nitrogen
For the water: nothing. Don't panic! Where I live we get our water from an Esker. This is one of the purest water in the world. It is bacteria/parasite/virus free and has no chemincals added to it whatsoever. My tap water is just like bottled water. But it does naturaly have phosphate in it.

5)Little history: I've had the DPs for 1 year. They were in a 10G by themselves. The tank was fishless cycled as indicated in the article on this forum. In August I switched them to the 15G, which was cycled with the aquaclear filter from the 10G. I was hoping changing the tank/substrate/plants and all would help with the cyanobacteria, but it all came back quite quickly.

I hope you guys can help me as to what to do with my little Borneo!

So know one can offer an advise??

Right now the dents are stable, didn't grow, but didn't regress. Water is better with Phosphate at around 0.3 and Nitrates 7.0.

I really need advise as to what this might be and how to fix it!
Thanks!

Melafix will help clear-up fin rot. Can you post any pictures?

You wouldn't see a thing on a picture, she doesn't flash her tail when I'm not feeding her and you don't see it if she's not flashing her tail.
I'll add melafix, thanks!

It was murder treating my new Betta for Fin Rot. 4 months of treatment. He would heal then the fin rot would come right back. I had to finally put him to rest .

You can use pimafix and melafix at the same time. I would do that. Keep in mind they are both very mild so for a sever case it might not work. Have you seen the article here:
library/hospital/melafix/

I'm wondering if the cyanobacteria plus a possible bite could have led up to the fin rot. cyanobacteria as you probably know is a bacteria. I think I would remove her from the tank away from the cyanobacteria and other fish. Fin rot can be contagious.

I would not know what other meds to recommend for a DP because they are sensitive to meds. I'm sorry. Also you may want to do a search here on fin rot. If I remember correctly others have posted about it. I'm sorry I can't help more. Let us know how she is doing.

Thanks you guys.
I've added Melafix and Pimafix. Problem is I'm leaving for 4 days... So no other treatment will be undertaken for now.
I can't say wether it's worse or stable... the dents are still there, it's not better and did I see a bit more of a ragged tail? She doesn't open it long enough for me to see! Sure thing is, if it's getting worse it's doing so very slowly. There's no white, black or anything on the ragged edge, it's just the same fin color.

So looking for fin rot in the forum I saw how it's just a symptom... so what causes ragged tail fin with no discoloration/whitish stuff/etc.?

Fin Rot can be tricky. It does not always look the same. It is sometimes hard to know right away that it is fin rot. Sometimes an edge does not show up for a long while? My betta had no colored edge for a long time. I know a different fish. That is all I can base it on.

To rule out nipped fins you would need to remove her from the other tankmates. Is there anything in the tank that could tear up her fins? Not a good idea to stop treatment. Is there anyone you can trust to add the meds?

Back from 4 days out of my house. My neighbor fed the fish and added the medicine. Also I got some bloodworms (the Ikari brand are enriched with vitamins), so the vitamins might help. I'm being careful to keep the nitrate at 7 maximum...
It seems to be quite stable, no deterioration, but no improvment neither. All the other fish look ok and there's no fin rot on any other fish (there's 9 total in the tank). I think now that she probably got nipped by the males. I'm keeping a close eye on her, there's no other symptom than 2 dents in her tail. If anyone has another idea let me know!

Well, it got worst before it got better!

A couple of days after my last post I saw Borneo's tail was growing back (yeah!). And then the otos that had been hiding a lot lately started coming out... with terrible looking tails! All 5 of them had ragged tails! So I did a WC and decided to rinse my filter sponge in the bucket of tank water I just pumped out of the aquarium. The sponge was full of dirt and it was actually so full it was coming out of the filter into the tank, so It was obvious to me that it had to be rinse. I didn't change it so I could keep some bacterias.
Well, I don't know if it was because of the melafix and pimafix in the tank, but I had a biofilter crash afterwards! The next morning I see that the water is troubled, so I check the Nh3...1.0! So I did a 50% WC right away. Luckily, there must have been quite a few bacteria left (I also have 2 bags of biowheels in the filter) because when I came back from work the NH3 were back to zero!

So I kept the melafix and pimafix treatment, Borneo is almost healed and the otos are doing much better. The most frustrating: I didn't add any nitrogen this week because I felt my biofilter might still be weak, and the bluegreen algae have grown just a little bit... nothing to compare with before! So I did all this to solve the algae problem, and it actualy amplified the growth of the algae and made my fish sick. I'm so frustrated! This Redfield ratio is really not working!

That sucks......

I have found out with my 20g planted tank I Have to put new filter pads in at least every 3 weeks. I don't rinse them because they are filthy(I tried). Replacing them more often was a suggestion on plantgeek because I thought I had cyanobacteria. It turns out I didn't but will still keep changing the media often. Water flow is another way to kill cyanobacteria with pumps. Do you hAVE THAt going good in your tank?

I'm glad the fish are looking better!

I have an aquaclear 30 filter in a 15G.... The water flow is quite strong and the plants are always in movement... I think I managed to grow a flow resistant - dark resistant- nitrogen lover strand of cyanobacterias!! (I tried the black out for a week... worked at first and now barely does a thing!)