Tail and fin rot in my qt tank

Hey all I recently set up a qt tank (1 week ago) and I currently have 8 fish in there; 3 long fin leopard danios 2 oto cats and 3 plates. They are all destined for my 29 gallon community tank. Well tonight I noticed that one of my platys has fin and tail rot. No one else is showing any sign of it. My question is should I take the healthy fish and move them early into the 29 so I don't medicate healthy fish?
water tests are 0 0 5 for ammonia, nitrites, and nitrates.
Thanks

 

Hello & Welcome!

It could be from fin-nipping as Danios can be nippy. You don't need to medicate. Just daily water changes to keep the water clean will clear it up and can take several days. Adding a water conditioner with a slime coat healing aid like Stress Coat or NovAqua Plus. Fish Protector is another good one. VitaChem is also great for fin regeneration.

Enjoy the site!

 

Thanks. I am pretty sure it isn't fin nipping. I will step up my water changes, should it be a 30% change or higher?

I only have seachem prime right now, but I was going to pick up some melafix so I can look at one of the conditioners you suggested.

 

Welcome to Fishlore! A community full of wonderful information, advice, and just a touch of sarcasm now and then to keep people giggling. I'm sure you'll find you'll fit right in. (Even if there's not a sarcastic bone in your body)

The fin rot may have been prompted by your level of ammonia since it appears your QT isn't cycled. Prime can protect fish from the adverse effects of ammonia, nitrite and nitrate levels but only for 24 hours at a time. At that point in time water tests, a water change with the addition of Prime in an amount to treat the whole tank should be carried out each day.

50% daily water changes will usually help keep levels low enough for Prime to protect your fish from the remaining toxins for the duration of a cycle.

Since all of your fish in the QT have been subjected and the quarantine period has a ways to go which means they could be carrying other things that could be introduced into your main tank that haven't come to light yet, I would personally leave all these fish in quarantine until everybody looks healthy and a reasonable quarantine period has been elapsed.

How big is your quarantine tank? Is your community tank a cycled tank? How long has it been up and running?

The reason I ask is you may be able to steal some filter media from the community tank and put it into the QT filter chamber along with it's other media. This may help you achieve an instant cycle (the bacteria would still have to consume the ammonia and nitrites (if they appear) from the current ammonia levels) but you could save your fish from further stress of an uncycled tank.

The addition of Stress Coat or NovAqua+ are exellent suggestions as well as the vitamins. You could also soak their food in some garlic juice to further boost their immune systems.

 

Thanks for the welcome! been a long time lurker. The tank is cycled, but I can see how I wrote the parameters it looks like it isn't. Ammonia is 0 nitrites 0 and Nitrates are at 5. I did a fishless cycle prior to having any fish in the 10 Gallon QT tank.

My community tank is very stable with 8 Danios, 1 dwarf gourami, and 4 otos. I lost 9 fish during the big winter storm in CT about a month ago where I was without power for 8 days and I am re-stocking with some new fish.

The 3 platies I purchased had some small evidence of nipping from the store but I have never had an issue with them getting worse once I brought them home and into the stable water conditions of my tanks. In fact one of them shows no signs of damage and another is healing nicely. However the third has gotten worse and I am worried that it will spread if not treated. I have done 2 water changes 30-40% in the last 3 days, added some more salt to the water. I will stop by petco tonight and pick up one of the recommended solutions.

 

If you have otos in there, I have found they can be a little salt sensitive, so you might want to be careful with that. Other than that, I'd give the slime coat aids a chance and try the melafix if things continue to worsen.

Glad to find out I was just reading numbers wrong. Thumbs up to you Keep us posted on their progress.