I have 5 red bellies and one of them was attacked and got a pretty nasty wound right in front of its dorsal fin. This happened wednesday and it is now saturday. Since then I have added salt to the tank and raised the temp to 82 degrees. This morning I turned on the lights and was amazed at how fast it has healed in the past 3 days and thought to myself that it should be almost 100% in about 5 more days. 10 minutes later he was bit on the SAME SPOT!!! It was not as bad tho but it bled a little. I immediately started dumping food in the tank in hopes that if the rest of the fish had full bellies that they would leave it alone. I plan to continue to do this for the next week until it is healed. Should I seperate them? I know in the wild, only the strong survive and any weakness is a good reason to make a meal. What else do you all suggest? Anyone else deal with piranha with nasty bites?
War wound
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When I had mine they would always heal within a few days, but it seemed like they would bite each other for no reason, no matter how much I fed them. They are a really strong fish though, and yours should recover. If it seems to have trouble swimming or anything, then separate it into a hospital tank.
Through time they bite each other and then they won't. They just do that. Probably why they evolved the ability to regenerate as fast as they do. They are either the fastest regenerators or up towards the top. I've seen some so bad that it would have killed another fish and they survive. When it heals it will be a slightly different color than the rest of the fish and then even that will go away. They don't regrow eyes (or recover from a blinding incident). But you'll be amazed what they can recover from and regrow. I add a little melafix to the tank if it's a bad bite to help out a bit.