# How well can fish heal?



## Tom (3 Apr 2012)

I had a great little Black Ranchu in our goldfish tank, but when the rear lower seam split (6 week old tank!) I had to transfer all the fish into a loaned 120 liter - half what they were in before. 

The Ranchu got picked on by a larger red/white Ryukin, and his fins are badly damaged. I didn't think he would survive, but he seems OK after a week being separated from the others. 

How well can fins recover from something like this? Will he ever get back to the great shape he had before?

Tom


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## hinch (3 Apr 2012)

yep but fins heals quite slowly. once he stops being bullied it'll heal up just takes time.  one of my commons had all its rear fins nipped off 8 months later they're about half teh way back to what they were.

more recently as in a week ago one of my silver sharks went full retard and got himself stuck trying to eat a dead barb while I was at work. when he was stuck he managed to damage a load of the scales on his side and one of his front fins. the scales have fully healed up already and the frayed white part of the damaged fin is gone but its not started growing back yet so for the moment he has a nemo style lucky fin


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## Matt Warner (3 Apr 2012)

I have always found that a healthy fish will grow its fins back within a few weeks normally. Some fish take longer, others don't take as long.


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## Steveyg81 (4 Apr 2012)

I have a large pearl gourami in my tank and I crushed him when I was slotting back my internal filter.
Thought I had lost him because he had a horrible red graze, and was swimming very slowly and sideways with laboured gill movements.

I put him in quarantine, added a small amount of generic anti infection liquid and presto.......2 Weeks later and you would not have known what happened to him!

I think the healing process is like that in humans, the fish just need the right environment and in general they will recover completely.


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## darren636 (4 Apr 2012)

with nice clean water, good diet and no stress your fish should be right as rain very quickly.


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## Aqua sobriquet (4 Apr 2012)

I've had success a couple of times with fish that had nasty looking wounds on them by drying the damaged area gently then applying pure Aloe Vera gel. At the very least the gel seemed to act as a temporary slime coat. Not sure it would help with fins though!


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## Tom (4 Apr 2012)

Thanks for the replies. I did fish health in quite a lot of detail at college, but have luckily never actually had to treat anything. As this Ranchu is a good quality one, I was worried he would be permanently deformed. Have been treating with Protozin just to prevent anything nasty getting in, and doing very large regular water changes. Am thinking about putting a small heater in to speed things up. Hopefully he'll be back his old self soon enough. 

And a couple years ago I swore I'd never keep goldfish!


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## mlgt (4 Apr 2012)

Good luck. Hope the Ranchu heals up well. Ive kept my kois for around 20 years and never really had any problems. Water change of 30% every month with some dechlorinator and feeding once every 2-3 days was good enough for them.
Would chuck in some veg to them every so often.


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## dw1305 (5 Apr 2012)

Hi all,
Same as the others really usually, good quality water and a good diet means that even fairly damaged fish will recover.


> I've had success a couple of times with fish that had nasty looking wounds on them by drying the damaged area gently then applying pure Aloe Vera gel. At the very least the gel seemed to act as a temporary slime coat.


I think I'll try if I ever need a fish wound treatment, a couple of times (when I've had damaged cichlids) I've used a mouth ulcer treatment "Adcortyl in Orabase", which has worked brilliantly but you can't get it any longer.

cheers Darrel


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## Tom (16 May 2012)

Just a quick update - since being in the 60P, the Ranchu has made an almost complete recovery. I expect he will be totally healed within the month  It's incredble how fish can bounce back after such a severe beating 

Been treating with Melafix from the start, and feeding Hikari Lionhead and bloodworm. Water changes 2x50% weekly. Shame no-one sells decent goldfish around here, I'd love a good tri-colour/calico Ranchu.

Tom


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## sWozzAres (16 May 2012)

Denisonni Barbs have a quite distinctive caudal fin. When I got mine 10 years ago, they were in a tank with a Rainbow Shark - nightmare fish, it would chase them around all day and chew their fins to the extent that they barely had any colouring left.






I moved the Rainbow Shark and within a few months the caudal fins had grown back. Something a friend of mine said once made me think that the colouration is a good defence mechanism. To predators, this could look like a pair of eyes so if you can fool the predator into biting your caudal fin instead of your head then you have a great survival mechanism.

Melafix


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## Tom (17 Jun 2012)

Ranchu has completely healed now, and has really started growing again  Incredible really to think he didn't have any fins a few weeks ago! Good combination of Melafix, Hikari, warm temperatures and lots of water changes I think


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## Matt Warner (17 Jun 2012)

Hi Tom, I'm glad to hear that your fish has healed completely. At the time this post started, my Siamese fighters fins were looking worse for wear. He was a bit skittish when I first got him and I think he must of caught his fins on something. However after keeping the water clean, and feeding a variety of different foods, his fins have completely healed and look like when I first got him. It did take a month or do for the fins to completely heal though, whilst my other fish like tetras heal within a week normally.


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## adamhawk (23 Jun 2012)

I've never had luck with fish recovery products so I have a treatment tank, any sick go there to heal naturally and if they don't and they pass on, they don't spread germs etc. I'm luck that in 4 years only been used once.


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