Shredded fins on my cherry barbs

[pinkybraincbfam]

So we have had a cherry barb community that has been going for about a year now and over the summer they had 4 babies and they have all grown up and are doing well my only concern was their fins have not fully developed. Their tail fins seem shredded. I thought this was just the older fiah nipping them although they haven't been healing. For the past week we have done a melafix treatment and there dorsal fins seem to be looking much healthier and fuller. Although the tails are not perfect there is a definite improvement. My big question is the treatment was for 1 week and today I am going to do a water change and put the carbon filter back in. Would it be better if I continued the treatment until the fins are fully healed??? Or even do it for another week. Or should I put the carbon filter in for some time and then repeat the treatment in a week or so??? I don't want to leave the carbon filter out to long..... Right?? Or is the melafix good enough for the time until the fins are healed????


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[pinkybraincbfam]

Just to answer a few of those questions I didn't read before posting ?... Our 20 gallon tank has 6 cherry barbs 2 original and 4 raised from fry in the tank. As well 3 oto's
Ammonia is 0
Ph- 7.2
Nitrite- 0
Nitrate- 15
Water temp - 75f

In that tank we have a i 10-30 gal filter running at about medium

We are currently feeding them tetra tropical fish flakes

I do a 20-30% water change every other week during this time I am vacuuming the rocks and substrate the oto's take care of any algae so that help a lot.



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[pinkybraincbfam]

Whisper power filter i30


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[fishy14]

Post a picture of the shredded fins


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[SpaceFish42]

I might be fin rot... Did you say that only the newer generation has it?

 

[pinkybraincbfam]

Yes only the next generation has it. In this photo you will see our two older barbs the male uptop with the older female on the lower of the frot three and the female to the left of the male you see the rear fins are torn and on the female to the far right has the same thing. It started once they got big enough for our male to start chasing them around. The two smaller girls in the back started to show splits in there fins. That's when we started the melafix. We just finished a week of treatment. They seem to be getting much better but still not fully healed.


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[pinkybraincbfam]

this is the biggest girl from the next generation. And her fins where the worse and seem to be getting fuller


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[Matt68005]

How did they get hurt? Barbs are suppose to be hardy fish.....they should not be rotting like this for no reason. I would recommend also recommend an antibiotic and anti-mould combination medicine and a hospital tank at this point, and figure out how (maybe the filter) they are getting hurt.....maybe another fish is nipping?

 

[pinkybraincbfam]

We have two adult barbs in the tank there fins are fine. The younger generation is the only ones experiencing this deterioration. The male is very active and is always chasing someone around. So as I have said previously in this thread I do believe it is simply the male nipping at them as he chases them around. The fins seem to be coming back now slowly but you can tell they are healing. Figure go a week as usual and this weekend we will start another round of melafix to simply help promote healing for the fins. And i am almost 100% positive it's from the male nipping at the females cause in the same tank we have 3 oto's and there fins are fine.


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