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I noticed that one of my guppies had a chunk of tail missing today. I put him in my one gallon hospital tank. I just noticed a largish white spot at the base of his fin where the chunk was missing. Is it fin rot or just damaged fin tissue.

Could you describe it a bit more? Is the piece of the fin totally " missing" or is it just stringy right there...is there a loss of color in the tail in other areas?

Guppies have a certain form of fin rot that is just the quickest thing I have ever seen. I've watched a guppy go from large, colorful tail, swimming around happily, to having loss of color in a spot or two 4 hours later, to having a stringy tail missing all color 8 hours after that, to dead 4 hours after that...with no other fish in the tank. Any guppies I get from an lfs or something get Maracyn Plus right off the bat in the Quarantine tank, no questions asked. The rot is just too quick to wait for symptoms and then treat, because by the time you catch it they're going to be on death's door.

Anyways, could use a little more information about any other symptoms and also what size tank and inhabitants .Thanks.

well almost his entire tail is gone now and there is a nasty bulge on is body where his tail os attached. what is left of the tail is stringy and tattered. Another guppy has also started to look very sick. His tail has turned black and begun to fall apart. I cannot find any of the medicines any one has talked about in other posts. none of the stores here carry many of the fish meds. I did find quICK and Melafix. but that is the only meds i could find. I don't really know what to do except quarenteen the sick ones and watch them go to fish heaven. I have already lost a betta (ick), two guppies (unknown), and a ghost shrimp (missing/eaten?) I am almost ready to give up!!!!!

It's a bacterial infection on the guppies...the nasty one I was describing. If there are any other guppies in the tank besides the affected ones, they will begin to show symptoms as well. I have found that once one guppy gets it, every single guppy in that tank will get it and die quickly. The only thing I've found that works is Maracyn and Maracyn 2 (together) OR Maracyn Plus by itself. There are online sources for Maracyn Plus, and If you have a lot of guppies in that tank, I'd suggest getting some immediately. In my experience, melafix has not been successful with the "guppy strain" of bacterial fin rot. It may help slow it down, but all the guppies would usually still get it and still die. Possibly the lfs could have antibiotics that I have not heard of nor used that might help. I gave you the best ones that from my experience do work for this ( maracyn plus being the best), but they may have similar I haven't tried. Just make sure its an wide spectrum ANTIBIOTIC , not just "antibacterial". By antibiotic, I mean sulfadimidine, trimethoprin, erythromycin, etc...wide spectrum legitimate antibiotics. I'd call around to various pet stores and try to find one that actually sells meds.

Quarantining the afflicted guppies is ok, but you'll have to treat the main tank if you still have guppies in there anyway.