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Possible fin-rot, but...
One of the fish in our 18g is a minnow (long story) that's about 1 year old (<1.5" in length). About four+ weeks ago, something happened to its lower jaw. It looked like it became unhinged and he can't close it fully. But he seemed to be able to take in food and seemed healthy enough (and beside, what the heck can we do?).
About two weeks ago, he rapidly showed signs of inflammation of the tail area, and then his entire tail fell off pretty much overnight.
We isolated him to a separate tank and began a Melafix treatment. The inflammation went away quickly, and the rest of his fins look fine, and the other fish also seem fine. There even appeared to be hints that maybe the tail was starting to grow back, but it's so slight it's easy for us to be fooled.
It was obviously an effort for him to float swim, and in the past few days he spends 90% of his time lying on the bottom of the tank. Several times we thought he had demised. When he does swim, it's like he's struggling to counteract extra weight or something. Pretty sad looking, especially with the broken jaw thing. :-(
So, here are some specific questions:
1) We've done the Melafix for well over a week. Do we continue? The bottle indicated 7 days treatment, and we've past that now.
2) Assuming it was fin-rot, and we've cured that, how long does it normally take tail fins to *noticeably* grow back?
3) Is there anything else I can do as far as treatment? Is he too far gone? I still don't know if the broken jaw is affecting his eating enough that he's a gonner anyway.
I'm amazed he's lasted this long, and I've seriously considered just putting him out of his misery a few times, but we can consider other alternatives as long as he's hanging on.
Oh, and the chemical levels in both tanks are near-equal and in good shape, and his buddies back in the main tank (guppies & neons) all seem healthy & happy.
Brad.
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