injured mandrin, sugestions/help please

iretthepirate · Apr 1, 2012

my male mandrins dorsal fin is broken in 1 or 2 places :( , the skin on it looks lighter. does anyone have any idea what might happen to his bone or skin? hoping it wont rot off. anything i can do to help it heal?

caudill187 · Apr 1, 2012

Wow sorry to hear that. I would say, depending on the extent of the injury, it will heal or may rot off. If he loses part of it, he should be OK as long as infection doesn't set it. Fish can be amazingly tough and he could do just fine with 1/2 a dorsal fin.....as long as he has enough food. I would say just leave him be and try and keep him fed. One could theoretically move him to a hospital tank and treat with antibiotics to prevent infection, but sometimes I think this is more stress than it is worth....and may kill the fish itself.

Zombie · Apr 2, 2012

If not too bad and the fish is healthy it may regenerate new skin over the bone.
I have seen fish grow entire tails back and once a tang riped his upper lip off and it grew back.

CJO · Apr 2, 2012

This is a fairly common injury to mandarins when they are caught. I'm not sure whether they will regrow the dorsal fin or not, but there is a pretty good chance he'll be fine.

CJ

Lateral72 · Apr 2, 2012

CJO said:
This is a fairly common injury to mandarins when they are caught. I'm not sure whether they will regrow the dorsal fin or not, but there is a pretty good chance he'll be fine.

CJ

It's very common for collectors/exporters to remove the dorsal fins of male mandarins, to make them appear as if they are females. This is why people often have troubles pairing up mandarins of "different" sex.

iretthepirate · Apr 3, 2012

thanks guys. his skin is off the bone today half of his dorsal fin bone is exposed now :( . but from what i hear from everyone he should be fine. i hope his skin grows back. but mainly i just dont want him to get a infection. thanks again!