rescued severums gill fins almost gone

[SusieQ]

Hi everyone.
A few weeks ago, after selling my discus and deciding I would probably tear down my 120 gallon planted tank, I had an emergency rescue of 4 2+ year old severums from someone's tank that was severely overcrowded and not too clean. I put them in my tank that still had an adult angel, 2 bn and a school of rummeynoses left in it.
When I rescued the sevs I noticed that the 2 golds had almost no gill fins. There are just the boney looking "rays" but very little fin.. The fish are doing great. They are otherwise healthy and pigs at mealtimes. Since I am used to discus, the water parameters are great and the tank gets at least weekly water changes. Everyone is getting along. I just wonder what could have caused the damage to the fins and will they grow back.
The previous owner had them (the 4sevs are each at least 4/5 inches) in a 55 gallon tank with 10 bloodparrots, a brown knife, a large black shark, a firemouth and some other assorted fish. The maintenance schedule was maybe once a month small water change and cleaning. She's a great person. She "loves" her fish.. they occasionally got black spots all over them so she added chems to fix that.. So like I said these guys were "rescued" with 2 of the 4 having the fin problem.
I am thinking it was probably a combo of poor water conditions, overcrowding and possible fin nipping.. but since I've never had sevs before and its only the golds not both the golds and the greens, I'm wondering what caused it and what can be done.
Sorry no pics.. not it's not fungus or what I am used to seeing as fin rot.. no white edges or anything.. The tail fins etc are fine. the condition doesnot seemed to have deteriorated or spread.. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks Sue

 

[cichlid2006]

its good that the rays are left as if these are damaged then they are unlikely to repair.
try some melafix as that aids fin growth in a big way. you could also add pimafix to keep any fungus from forming on the regrowing fins. melafix and pimafix are both natural and effective and are designed to work together.
other than adding that the usual regular water changes and high quality food apply IMO. the fins were probably taken in numerous territorial disputes from the condition you descibed that they were in.
hope this helps and someone with alternative or additional advice will hopefully chime in soon.

 

[SusieQ]

Thanks for the quick reply cichlid2006. I do have some melafix but don't have a big enough qt tank for both of the sevs.. If I add it to the 120 how much am I gonna add and for how long?? The rays on one are very short so I have a feeling that the fin may not grow back. The other one has longer rays so maybe.. is that what you are saying?? Have you experienced this type of recovery yourself or is this info from what you have read about others??
If you have seen it yourself how long did it take?? Thanks again for your help.
Anyone else out there run up against this situation??? Sue

 

[cichlid2006]

my two uaru were put in with rainbow cichlids at the lfs where i was living at the time, so were easy targets for the rainbows. they had little stumps for tails and their pectoral fins were virtually non existant either, they struggled to swim. even the rays were gone. but they were very young, only 1" long, so i know rays grow back on juvenile fish. i used melafix, weekly water changes of 30-40%, and it took about 1-2 months to be healed with a little scarring on the fins but they are now 6" and have no visible scarring from their juvenile trauma. a good high quality staple pellet, veg (try algae wafers, zuchinni and pallatable plants) and also a high protien meat such as bloodworm are a must and will aid recovery. just remember that a higher food intake means higher waste output so apply water changes and filtration to match.

add melafix as the bottle suggests and do as long as is needed. as for the sev with short rays, im unsure if it will grow back. it may just have a "lucky fin(s)" like nemo. as long as it is eating and not getting hammered by the other fish then there is no reason it cant have a full and happy existance.

 

[SusieQ]

Hi again.. Well this morning I decided to try the melafix I had. I followed directions on the bottle. This evening, while the sevs , angel and bns are ok the brown knife fish (rescued at the same time with scares on its body) is dead. The melafix should not have killed him as it did not affect the bns should it??? The bottle said it was great for all fish.. He may have already been on the way out but I don't know. Anyone experience problems with melafix and certain fish species?? Think I'm not gonna add any more melafix and just continue with the increased water changes and good food. The sevs are all doing great just want to see if I can get the fins to grow back.
Thanks for your help. Sue

 

[Lupin]

It's interesting to note the side effects of the Melafix. A moderator in Loaches Online forum experienced a negative issue with it wherein it killed all her kuhli loaches. Most scaleless fish are really sensitive to meds, whether herbal or not. I wouldn't be too confident over herbal meds being practically safe to all fish.

 

[SusieQ]

Hi there... Lupin thanks for your feedback. I thought the same thing and did does at a lower doseage but perhaps the knife fish which I had also rescued along with the sevs, was in a less than perfect health state prior to me rescuing it and so reacted more severely to the melafix. The otto and 2 bns are just fine but they have always been mine and have been in the tank for well over 2 years.
Everyone is doing great as far as eating and swimming just the gill fins on the 2 gold sevs are a mess. My adult koi angel and smaller rott sev have perfect fins so nothing in the current setup is either causing the situation or being affected by it. So I guess I just have to wait and see if the clean water and good food does its job on the fins or if they are just gonna be healthy fish with some messedup fins. Regardless, while they will never take the place of the discus I sold, they sure have a lot of personality and I'm very glad I rescued them. I think the remainder of the melafix is going in the trash LOL. Thanks again for your help. Sue

 

[syndicate]

It's interesting to note the side effects of the Melafix. A moderator in Loaches Online forum experienced a negative issue with it wherein it killed all her kuhli loaches. Most scaleless fish are really sensitive to meds, whether herbal or not. I wouldn't be too confident over herbal meds being practically safe to all fish.

i have put melafix in my tank with 2 kuli loachs and there never died so i highly doubt it was the melafix