I pulled him out of my 55g cichlid tank this morning and this is what he looked like... I'm getting ready to add medication, and im rising the temps and adding salt.
Any chance of the tail growing back?
African Cichlid missing tail. HELP (PICS)
- Thread starter charles-n-charge
- Start date
I pulled him out of my 55g cichlid tank this morning and this is what he looked like... I'm getting ready to add medication, and im rising the temps and adding salt.
Any chance of the tail growing back?
I wouldn't count on the caudal fin growing back, the caudal peduncle looks pretty damaged. He may heal up though and still live a decent life, he's just likely to be stumpy.
looks like a bad case of fin rot 
, either that or one of your other fish is probably harassing him
Fin rot occurs when the fish is stressed for some reason. The most common cause is poor water quality. Overcrowding the tank, feeding outdated food or overfeeding, and moving or handling the fish can also cause stress leading to fin rot.
Treatment should include a water change, and careful examination of the aquarium conditions. If there is food debris, vaccumm the gravel and take care to avoid overfeeding. Start dating your fish food, as it loses the vitamin content fairly quickly after it is opened. Feeding fish fresh, high quality food, in smaller quantities is far better than frequent large feedings of stale foods.
Prevention:
, either that or one of your other fish is probably harassing himFin rot occurs when the fish is stressed for some reason. The most common cause is poor water quality. Overcrowding the tank, feeding outdated food or overfeeding, and moving or handling the fish can also cause stress leading to fin rot.
Treatment should include a water change, and careful examination of the aquarium conditions. If there is food debris, vaccumm the gravel and take care to avoid overfeeding. Start dating your fish food, as it loses the vitamin content fairly quickly after it is opened. Feeding fish fresh, high quality food, in smaller quantities is far better than frequent large feedings of stale foods.
Prevention:
- Maintain good water quality
- Keep proper water parameters
- Feed fresh food in small amounts
I have a silver dollar that had it's tail fin damaged like that and it grew back. Add salt and lots of water changes need to keep the water pristine. Chances of infection are very high. Good luck with it.
takes months to grow back, as long as you got the cause under control, give him some space/time and it will grow back. I've had roseline shark that had it WORSE than this, and a sterbai cory that had it worse than this. The roseline perfect tail within few months, while the sterbai had funny C shaped after few months, its hit and miss on this one how perfect the tail will grow back. Give it time and TLC with plenty of good water conditions it will bounce back!
I've seen worse and was totally fine. Fish are adapted to deal with this type of near misses by predators in the wild me thinks.
If it were just the fins I'd say it would grow back fine, but the injury extends to the meaty part. It's like if you severely damage your cuticle, the nail growing from it can be deformed for the rest of your life if the injury is bad enough.
It was from tankmates, not fin rot. And he isn't alone, I didn't have space to hospitalize him. So he's with my small BGK, ID shark, rope fish, and african knife in a 35g. I'm not too worried about the cichlid being agressive in his current condition, and the rest of the stock is about the same size as him and very gentle (grow-out tank btw)
I too have seen worse, a peacock of mine had a close encounter with my Jardini. Most of his tail grew back but the lower area of the caudal peduncle never did heal correctly. He still lived a long life.
Good luck with that guy, those EL's are tough!
Good luck with that guy, those EL's are tough!