# Will his tail grow back? (pics)



## michellerfish

Hey everyone,

I tried looking this up but couldn't find any posts with pictures. I can't tell if this fish's tail is too far gone to grow back or not? He is isolated in one end of the tank now with a divider. Can I put that melafix stuff in there or is that bad for the other fish?

I'm no fish expert but I got this fish about 3 years ago when I started this tank, with another electric yellow. They just recently started fighting; I think they are both males. Do I need to give away the other fish? Or should I get female electric yellows, or...? I want to keep the damaged fish for sure.

I have 13 fish total...I don't know all of the names I got them so long ago. 1 blue, 1 orange, 2 yellow, then a horizontally striped yellow and black one, a peacock, and a misfit jewel. I got 5 small giant danios in attempt to distract them from picking on this injured fish before I separated him. I also have a pleco. It's a 55 gallon tank. Sorry for the lack of information.


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## sumthinfishy

seperate the fish and let it heal, no meds necessary. i had a few that had same amount of tail gone and it grew back all the way


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## Robin

Hi and welcome to the forum. 
Short answer to your question: probably. 
Right now the most important thing is to avoid infection which can move incredibly fast on an injured fish. You want to keep the water conditions perfect with frequent, (daily or every other day) partial water changes, (25-40%) using a good quality declorinator. Increase the water movement in the tank if you can by adding an other filter or a water jet--where he's divided off it could be that his side could get pretty stagnant. Adding a small amount of aquarium salt, (sodium chloride) may also help to avoid infection.
The melafix won't hurt the other fish but the most important thing is keeping the water conditions perfect with water changes. If you use the melafix you can continue to follow the directions (daily dosing), just do the dose after the water change. 
You may also want to have on hand an antibiotic if you see the signs of infection. This would be fuzzy white or gray growth, suddenly eroding fins or raw, red areas that suddenly appear. Kanamycin, (Kanaplex), or a combination of Maracyn and Maracyn-two. If you treat him with an antibiotic then you really should remove him to a hospital tank.

What you've described, fish that kind of grew up together suddenly becoming aggressive is not uncommon at all--they get to a certain age and BLAMO! --it's time to mate and that's when we have to step in and make some changes. 
So yes, you might fix things by adding more fish. E.yellows like to have one male and three/four females. The problem with e. yellows is they are very hard to sex. You might have two females. Or, one male, one female: an overly aggressive male can and will chase a lone female to death. 
So there's that part of the puzzle. You also mentioned some other fish. It's really important that you id them also as you may have just seen the beginings of your stocking problems.. I would take a picture of all of them and post in the ID folder. The horizontally yellow and black striped one: could be an Auratus, one of the more aggressive mbuna. Did you get your fish at a chain pet store? They often stock Auratus--I think because they are so colorful as juveniles that they sell.
Post back with any additional infor/questions

Robin


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## michellerfish

Robin,

Thank you for the information! That's really helpful. We've gotten a little attached to this poor guy. We thought we were going to lose him and he pulled through and now we're committed to helping him get better. We added in a supplemental filter yesterday for his side to make sure his water is staying clean as well. He (or she?) has been fighting through the divider a bit with the other electric yellow. Would a female be doing that or is it logical to assume they're both males?

The other fish are as follows: I was short on time this morning when I posted.

1 blue cobalt
1 red zebra
2 electric yellow
1 jewel
1 auratus (yes, indeed. it hasn't been aggressive yet...)
1 peacock (I think it's a yellow regal but this one I'm not positive. Blue/purple head, yellowish green body. The guy at the specialty fish store recommended it as a more friendly fish.)
5 young giant danios
1 young common pleco (keeping the tailless fish company)

The plan is to eventually get a larger tank (around 125gal) and stock it with a little more education behind our choices. We purchased all of the cichlids without much guidance when we first started the tank, so they've all grown up together. Not much aggression yet aside from the two yellows. We rearrange decor a lot and make sure there are a lot of hiding places.


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## Robin

You did just what most of us did when we first got into these fish. Get a bunch of them, get some maybe not so great advice from the fish store, think everything is fine and then, one, maybe two, even three years into it, blamo! And I've had people on this forum have their 'blamo' be waking up to dead fish--fish that were eating and swimming normally the day before--it can happen that fast. 
I don't think you can judge the sex of the e. yellows just by their aggressiveness. What people often do with them is they buy like six to ten of them as juveniles hoping to get a good ratio and then once you see by the actual mating behavior, which are male and which are female, (only the females hold), you keep 4-5 of them, one male, the rest females, and re-home the rest. I've actually started that process myself with six juvenile e. yellows. 
The rest of your fish, for the most part also prefer to be kept harem style, one male, 3,4 females. You're at the point now where you should decide what type of cichlid you want to keep and then re-home the rest. Since you want to keep the injured yellow you can start there--get a bunch of juvenile e. yellows and then look into getting one more group. Maybe some Acei. I don't know if the peacock will fit in or not. The jewel--don't know either, but others on this forum do. I would start by posting in the Malawi folder and see what sort of suggestions you get. 
That's great you added the extra filter. One more bit of advise: Take a piece of the established filter's media and put it in the new filter. I don't know how much water exchange you have between the divider but you just don't want to take a chance on any kind of water problems on his side.

Robin

the young common pleco may grow to a foot in length. Look into finding a couple bristlenose plecos. they max out at about five inches and do a wonderful job cleaning the tank.


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## aicardi

Of the fish you do have you could have the yellows and cobalt's in a species tank. As Robin said, 1m-4f ratio. I don't know if the re zebra's would work with the yellows due to possible cross breeding. In a 55g you could have (3) species. 
At this point I'd want to know 100% the gender of the cobalt as well as the yellow's you currently have. You do this by venting. Do a search on "venting cichlids".
I certainly wouldn't vent the injured fish until it's fully recovered as to not add extra stress on an already stressed fish. This brings up another point...
Even though you have a divider separating the two, they are still trying to fight because they can see each other. Therefore stress levels remain high.
Now is a good time to consider a 10 gallon Hospital/Quarantine tank. Most of us have them for situations just like this.

I would probably rehome the rest. 
Common pleco's get huge. 12in + Way too big for a 55g.
Jewels work well in pairs by themselves. They are not harem breeders, they pair off. 
Auratus simply because having a group of these in a 55g species tank is in my opinion a recipe for disaster.
Red zebra because of possible cross breeding with yellow's.


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## Witblitz

Did your fish eventually recover its tail?


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