Female's cuadal fin seems paralyzed

[cbernhard11]

Hello I am brand new to this forum and semi new to owning betta's in general.
I have a 10 gallon sorority tank with 3 crowntail females in it with a couple little otocinclus. One of them was doing fine until a few hours ago she started hiding and clamping her fins. When she did start swimming it seemed like her cuadal fin doesn't move at all and its discolored. It doesn't look like cotton to me but it could still be a fungus I'm not sure. They have been doing the usual chasing each other and flaring to establish their hierarchy for the past few weeks but I thought they had finally finished so I'm not sure if this little girl is injured from one of the others or not. What should I do? I have her quarantined at the moment :(

[LunaStars004]

I am not an expert on sickness, but I think she could have some sort of disease. :( I am sorry

[cbernhard11]

if it helps at all this is what she used to look like when we first got her
and this is now

[sainthogan]

How old is she? It looks like to me that she also has stress stripes. She could just be extremely stressed in the sorority. Try adding more hiding places to see if that helps - if that doesn't work, try quarantining her for a while to see if she improves. My new boy was like that when I got him - he was shipped to me in the mail and when he arrived here, they dumped the bags outside in the snow pile and he almost froze. He couldn't move his ventral fins for several days and he was showing light stress stripes.

[Eggbert]

I've always heard the minimum for a sorority was 4. She does look stressed and looks like she has fin damage.

[cbernhard11]

yeah she was stressed. the first picture was from when we first put her in about 2 weeks ago and the second was when I quarantined her. In between then she didn't used to have her stress stripe but being in a new tank is probably stressing her out. We will probably go get 2 more this weekend so we have 5. Do you think the fin damage will heal itself? I'm also considering adding a little bit of salt. I've heard it helps cure them of some diseases?

[sainthogan]

They should heal on their own. Clean, warm water is the best for this. Aquarium salt will help, but it's only meant to used temporarily. 10 days is the max I think. Make sure if you use it, that it's aquarium salt designed for fresh water tanks. Table salt is not recommended because it contains iodine which can be fatal to your fish.