Five Quick and Easy Steps to Treat Fin Rot
What do you do if your fish’s fins and tail are looking ragged or discolored? Fin rot is a bacterial infection. While this is a simple illness to treat, it can cause other serious complications if untreated. Here are our five easy steps to curing finrot.
How Do I Know If My Fish Has Fin Rot?
Fin rot is commonly found in aquarium fish such as betta fish and goldfish. The symptoms can vary based on how long the fish has been affected:
– Stage 1:
Some discoloration can be seen around the edges of the tail and fins. Depending on the original color of the fish, the discoloration may appear as white, red, or even black. – Stage 2:
As infected parts start to fall off, the fin edges appear frayed and uneven. Stage 3
The entire fin and/or tail has rotted away, and the infection begins to attack the body, potentially leading to loss of life.
You may also notice your fish seems listless or doesn’t feel like eating anymore, since its body is working hard to fight the infection.
If your fish naturally has uneven fin edges, you may have difficulty spotting fin rot.
How Do You Treat Fin Rot in Fish?
1.
Check your fish’s environment
Whenever your fish gets sick, the first thing you need to do is play detective and find out why the fish got sick. If you don’t fix the problem, fin rot can return. Check the water parameters with an aquarium water test kit to see if anything is out of whack. Make sure there are no environmental factors causing stress to your fish, like an overly strong filter, sharp decor, or wrong temperature. 2. Take corrective measures
After you discover what’s wrong, remove the source of stress immediately so your fish can start recovering. 3. Clean the fish tank
Medications often require you to hold back from doing water changes during treatment, so clean the aquarium and remove as much fish waste as possible. (Read our tutorial on how to properly clean your aquarium.) 4. Use to treat with medication
We recommend that you use erythromycin, a broad-spectrum antibiotic that is effective against fin decay. If your fish has also developed a secondary fungal infection, methylene blue is an appropriate antifungal treatment. 5. Make your fish very comfortable
Keep your fish’s environment very clean and comfortable to ensure a quick recovery process. To ensure that your fish are comfortable, you can add an air filter or sponge filter to the water.
If you cannot buy erythromycin in your country, try treating the fin rot with aquarium salt. It is usually more difficult to treat the infection with this method. For more details, read our full article on how to treat fish diseases with salt.
Fin rot can be caused by dirty water, nipping from other fish, or other stress factors.
How Do You Know If Fin Rot Is Cured?
The medication may take several days to beat the infection, but some clear signs of recovery include:
– The fin rot has not progressed – No other new symptoms have appeared – Your fish’s appetite and energy level are returning – Fin regrowth has begun (and may be a different color than before)
There are several things you can do to prevent fin-rot from returning. Dirty water is a common cause for bacterial infection, so schedule a regular time for cleaning the aquarium and put a weekly reminder in your phone so you won’t forget. Other ways you can keep the water cleaner include not putting too many fish in one aquarium, not overfeeding them, and adding live plants to help absorb some of the fish waste.
As mentioned before, continue to reduce any stress factors in the aquarium by maintaining the proper temperature with a heater, slowing the water current if needed, and removing any aggressive tankmates. Finally, keep a close eye on your fish. It’s easy to miss symptoms if no one’s paying attention to the aquarium, so we recommend examining your fish once a day when you feed them.
Take heart! With proper treatment and prevention, fin rot is an easy sickness to beat, and most healthy fish have no problems making a full recovery. For information on how to treat other fish diseases, see our other articles here:
Attributions
– Fin Rot on Betta Fish by Dizzy Respect with color adjustment (CC BY-SA 4.0) – Betta Half Moon by Lerdsuwa with cropping (CC BY-SA 3.0) – Green tiger barb by Debivort with color adjustment and cropping (CC BY-SA 3.0)
