Fin rot!?

[demonr6]

I cannot seem to catch a break, I swear. I moved Polo from his tank into a smaller tank while I work on correcting a brown algae issue. This temporary tank has a betta log and a heater, nothing else. It was using temp adjusted and dechlorinated water with a teaspoon of AQ salt to help treat a curling fin problem due to hard water from our home. That was last night. I just got home from work and now I find him sulking, clamped and something is horribly wrong with his tail. It was fine last night and now the edges are whitish, frayed and it looks like they are disappearing before my eyes. I don't know what could have happened?? I do not want to jump to conclusions and say this is fin rot but how do they simply vanish? He is not a tail biter, he is honestly just hiding out now in the betta log. I am preparing our backup critter keeper with fresh water but need some advice.

[demonr6]

Pic of his fin..

Tailbiter?! Polo is kinda on the eccentric side. In his normal tank he likes to swim around and play with the micro bubbler. He sits at the bottom and eats or catches bubbles. Maybe he's bored so he started biting on his tail? NOM NOM NOM!!!

[Oldfishlady]

That looks like tail biting to me......and that can be hard to deal with....about all you can do is prevent a secondary infection until you can figure out the trigger...if he even has one...sometimes...they just bite for no reason.....hard to say.......

Keep up with the frequent water changes and watch the area for infection....I would completed at least 5 days of the salt treatment since you have already started it and then I would put him back in his main tank and do 25-50% daily water changes for a week or so....what size is his regular tank....

[demonr6]

His normal tank is a 5g but that is mess with the brown algae issue. That is the only reason I moved him out. He somehow managed to split his dorsal right down the middle so I moved him into QT to help that start healing and not have him in algae-ville during that process. Overnight in the 2g critter keeper he decided to chew his fins off and now he is throwing a temper tantrum in that tank by not eating, clamping his fins and laying in a corner. Unbelievable but true.

[Oldfishlady]

Little bugger......have you got the 5gal problem under control or figure out what was going on so you can put him back......

[demonr6]

Other than we know it is brown algae and there should not be any reason.. no. It first appeared when I removed two plants. Then it went completely out of hand when I removed the nasty sponge filter and replaced it with the little ceramic bio things that go in the filter. Thinking that would be a better bacteria home than the grody sponge. Well, that did not do too well huh? The tank has been lights out and covered hoping that would kill the algae, well, it killed the ghost shrimp. Actually, he committed suicide. I found him outside the tank and on the counter. Considering the water level was an inch below the top of the tank and there was no way out other than taking a leap. I am stumped. I tried scrubbing the stuff off, it does remove easily but in a day or two it comes back. This last time it came back with a vengeance and literally covered the tops of the decos something fierce. I tried cutting back the amount of time the light was on but it did not seem to care hence my reason to go dark side of the moon on it.

I have to do something quick though because Polo pitching that fit on me is not helping his situation at all.

[Oldfishlady]

How old are the light bulbs on the tank? can you post a pic of the tank and algae....to understand you removed the sponge filter and added a hang on the back type filter???
What kind of substrate are you using, how many and what kind of live plants are in the tank and what was your photoperiod before you went to the blackout or covered the tank with black plastic bags....

[demonr6]

The light bulb can't be more than two months at most. I had a Whisper 10i filter, I added a Fluval sponge to it in an effort to capture bacteria and baffle at the same time. I removed it because it had gotten really really awful and nasty to the point that swishing it around at the tank change did zero for it. I put in a new sponge then being stupid took that out for the bio ceramic things also from Fluval. That set things into fast speed. The substrate is medium size aquarium pebbles and there is a smallish Java and Umbrella now but there was a large Java and small Anubias as well. When I took those out and moved them to another tank, the imbalance was kicked off and shortly thereafter is when the algae showed up. The sponge mess was a few weeks later. The tank gets about 8 hours maybe more (my bad) depends on how long we are out at work. I cut it back when the algae started but it just took off light or not. I took everything out last night and cleaned the whole kit and kaboodle, I finally got a chance to really stir up the gravel.. it was not pretty. It looked like a blizzard in there.. white out conditions..