M. auratus missing tail

Hau kolas..

Question for the experts..had a two-inch female M. auratus get pretty
thoroughly torn up by a larger male M. auratus two days ago..long story
short she has pretty nasty looking fin damage, including most of her tail
fin shredded..parts of it are gone down to the flesh..after seperating her
from the male andobserving her, she still can manuever pretty well, has
balance and tremendous speed, good apetite and in terms of locomotion, shows
no real effect of the attack other than a bit more effort to "hover" than
normal. Assuming I can stave off primary and secondary infections resulting
from the injuries, and her ability to manuever remains strong, generally
speaking what kind of time frame (in a perfect world) should it take to
"regenerate" the caudal fin of such a fish? Any treatment (that the group
has real world experience with) that would hasten this?

pilamaya

TIA _

"Scott Far Thunder" wrote in message
...
Hau kolas..

Question for the experts..had a two-inch female M. auratus get pretty
thoroughly torn up by a larger male M. auratus two days ago..long story
short she has pretty nasty looking fin damage, including most of her
tail
fin shredded..parts of it are gone down to the flesh..after seperating
her
from the male andobserving her, she still can manuever pretty well, has
balance and tremendous speed, good apetite and in terms of locomotion,
shows
no real effect of the attack other than a bit more effort to "hover"
than
normal. Assuming I can stave off primary and secondary infections
resulting
from the injuries, and her ability to manuever remains strong,
generally
speaking what kind of time frame (in a perfect world) should it take to
"regenerate" the caudal fin of such a fish? Any treatment (that the
group
has real world experience with) that would hasten this?

pilamaya

TIA _

If the tail is destroyed right down to the base, it will most probably
never grow back. There is usually no treatment needed. In clean water,
these fish imo are not very susceptible to fungus or fin rot. If you're
still worried, a bit of Melafix would be fine. The loss of the tail does
not affect their life expectancy, but it drops them quite low in the
pecking order, so they need to be kept in a slightly less aggressive
environment (ie: a tank without other M.auratus).

NetMax

Scott Far Thunder wrote:
Question for the experts..had a two-inch female M. auratus get pretty
thoroughly torn up by a larger male M. auratus two days ago..long story
short she has pretty nasty looking fin damage, including most of her tail
fin shredded..parts of it are gone down to the flesh..after seperating her
from the male andobserving her, she still can manuever pretty well, has
balance and tremendous speed, good apetite and in terms of locomotion, shows
no real effect of the attack other than a bit more effort to "hover" than
normal. Assuming I can stave off primary and secondary infections resulting
from the injuries, and her ability to manuever remains strong, generally
speaking what kind of time frame (in a perfect world) should it take to
"regenerate" the caudal fin of such a fish? Any treatment (that the group
has real world experience with) that would hasten this?

Well, when I got three juvenial calvus with missing tail fins (due to
water quality I think), it took about a week to start seeing new tissue
and about a half dozen weeks before the tails were to normal size. This
assumes there was no damage done to the base of the fin by the male, which
is a possibility given your description. In such a case, the tail may grow
back misshapen.

The issues you have to face now as you said is avoiding bacterial and
fungal infections at the wound sites. Adding a small amount of salt to the
water can be helpful in this regards. Keep the water very clean with good
filtration and water changes. Also, keeping a close eye on the fish and
using a dip or spot treatment (net the fish and spot the medicine directly
on the wounds) if any signs of infection are seen would be my preferred
way to use medicines rather than throw them into the tank.

"Scott Far Thunder" wrote in message
...
Hau kolas..
snip what kind of time frame (in a perfect world) should it take to
"regenerate" the caudal fin of such a fish? snip

When one of my male labids had his tail completely shredded to the base by
another male, I separated him, added stress coat to the tank and did water
changes every four days or so. His tail was whole again in about a month and
a half. It never developed quite the same color it once had, but he was sold
shortly after his recovery, so I don't know what the future would have
brought.
AC