A transparent patch on Flowerhorn tail fin-What disease is it ?

Hi All,

I picked up this fish less than 2 weeks ago and he's housed all alone in a 42g tank. Noticed a transparent patch first on the tail fin 2 days ago, and now saw its getting bigger.

I'm feeding him Hikari pellets (Cichlid Biogold+ & Excel) & Chingmix Sp pro regularly. I have a canister filter fir the tank (JBL e900). The fish is otherwise active and no paleness,kok getting small is noticed. He seems to have lost his appetite since today,is eating much less. I checked water parameters yesterday and except for Nitrates,all were ok. Nitrate was 40-80ppm. What could be the problem here and how do I treat it ?

Notice the tail fin in first 2 pics, the last one is how he was on Day 1

Since I got the fish i've done only one 20% water change. Should I be doing water changes every other day from now ? Like 10% every alternate day ?

Just did a 50% water change. He seems to have become a tad bit inactive,is mostly idle though not lying horizontally,doesn't respond even if I go near the tank. I hope it isn't something to be worried about. His appetite is still good. I've cut down on all other foods and only feeding Hikari excel and staple. No protein foods

Aquanero said:

Have you check your water perameters? Ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, ph, etc? Is the tank fully cycled? One 20% water change in 2 weeks isn't really enough. I would test the water and report your findings so we can see if this is a water related issue.

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I checked it a few days ago,these are the results:

Ph-7.6
Ammonia-0 ppm
Nitrite-0ppm
Nitrates-40-80 ppm,definitely not more than that

xraycer said:

I don't think the transparent patch should be a concern, but you really need to increase your w/c schedule. If your tank is fully cycled, the w/c is really the only way to remove nitrate. Since he's still small, you should do between 30%-50% w/c every week, then you should increase to every 3-4 as it gets larger. A lot of fish problems stems from poor w/c practice IMHO

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I'd think the tank is fully cycled. Its been running for ~1 year now,though i had Mbunas until the 10th of this month. Thanks for the tip regarding w/c. Will definitely increase the frequency and volume too. I went by the advice i got on this site:

http://aqadvisor.com/AqAdvisor.php?...AqSpeciesWindowSize=short&AqSearchMode=simple

Just noticed that this "transparency" is spreading to his other fins too. Some sort of fading happening then ?

Attaching pics of water test results,sorry the chart is a little out of focus.

L to R: Ph, Ammonia, Nitrite and Nitrates