Can I temporarily treat a guppy in a 1/2 gal?

[Cattrah]

I have a Guppy with fin rot and I don't want to treat the whole main tank. Can I treat him in a 1/2 gallon betta bowl? I was just given the small tank (plan to use it for some shrimp or snails or an African dwarf frog -well i dunno if it's big enough for the frog) so I was just wondering if I could use it before I go out and get a 5 gal quarantine tank. I plan to return him to the main tank after treatment. I'm not sure how long it takes for a fish to heal from fin rot. His is moderately advanced. I thought it was just nipping from the platy in the main tank but I can tell that's not it now.

Just wondering since I know it will be a temporary situation if the guppy will be ok or if the small quarters might be too stressful for him and he won't respond to treatment.

 

[jvann]

Well, first off you need to know what caused the fin rot. Stress. Stress from bad quality water, being sick, or a combo of both.

To treat him for fin rot, you can just do a salt bath for him, and the half gallon will be fine as long as you don't leave it in too long. Changing a fish to a new environment will cause additional stress, so take that into consideration before you treat just one guppy, especially when it's probably effecting all your tank.

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[Cattrah]

It was most likely just plain stress plus some "leftover" disease. The first fish I put in my tank I bought from Petco before I learned their stock is pretty much always sick. They died a day later. Had my water tested at petsmart and the parameters were perfect. I bought the fish I have now from petsmart that day (a platy and a guppy in a 10g). They've been healthy and fine but once the platy got comfortable he started bullying the guppy, about 4 days later, by a week later the guppy had a tail tear and the fish were showing signs of ich. So I treated the tank for ich (just upped the temperature). Ich cleared up but the guppy tail kept yoyoing from getting better to getting worse and the platy was still being a bully. Since ich the fish have been otherwise healthy but now the guppy tail is getting very deteriorated, which is why I suspect fin rot. I added two mollies to the tank and the platy stopped bullying the guppy. If I can just get the guppy healthy now I think everything will be fine.

I thought salt baths were pretty stressful for fish? They almost sound cruel.

 

[jvann]

Salt baths cruel? No, you don't leave the fish in long. Guppies can tolerate a lot of salinity. If in not mistaken, they can be acclimated to salt water and be perfectly fine for life. Few freshwater fish can do this, but some can.

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[Cattrah]

Cool. I put 1/2 tsp salt in the half gallon with tank water and put him in for 10 minutes then back to the main tank. He swam around pretty feverishly the whole time. I'll dip him for a few more days and see how he improves. Thanks for the input.

 

[jvann]

Very welcome!

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