FishProfiles.com Message Forums

What's the ideal temp for treating fin rot with Melafix? It doesn't say on the bottle, in fact the instructions and description is very vague. Right now I have it at 80F.

That temp is fine, did you pull the charcoal pack from your filter ? Did you test the water to get an idea what caused the finrot ?

The Amazon Nut...

IME you Can NOT treat finrot with melafix. You need to use a stronger med first, then follow up treatment with the melafix.
The time I needed to treat for fin rot (bacterial) I used Jungle labs fungus clear tank buddies. It handles both forms of fin rot (bacterial and fungal) and is carried by most all chain and many LFS's. They come packaged as 1 tablet per 10 gallons. I'd suggest treating with that, then moving on to the melafix, make sure the carbon has been removed from the filter.

^_^ [hr width='40%']"Somewhere beyond happiness and sadness
I need to calculate,what creates my own madness...
and I am waiting for disaster"

I never use carbon in my tanks, so no worries there. Unfortunately, the fish were purchased with fin rot. I baught them from a lfs that had a moving sale. The fish are 12 bleeding hearts, 6 of them have the fin rot but the other 6 are fine. They've been in quarantine for 2 weeks. Hasn't spread to the healthy fish.

Was hopeing they'd heal themselves but it wasn't working, so I started treating with Melafix 4 days ago. I think there's slight improvement. I'll keep treating with melafix for two more weeks(if needed) before switching to stronger meds.

I have another question about melafix, since it's anti-bacterial, does it affect the biological filtration?

melafix will not harm your biofilter. I will be very surprised if it cures your finrot for you though. Tahts' like treating pneumonia with a cough drop

haha, if it doesn't I just wasted $15. Damn I hate overpriced aquarium stuff!]:|

Oh my goodness! Where did you go that you paid 15 dollars for melafix?

Don't get me wrong, it's handy stuff, just not for the initial treatment of fin rot. It's basically a watered down tea tree oil, and is a mild antiseptic, so it helps aid fin regrowth and prevent infection. You will want to get some of those antibiotics Babelfish mentioned tho.

When I buy melafix I always buy the Pond Melafix, because it's about the same pirce, but 1 capfull treats 50 gallons, instead of how with the regular stuff 1 cap treats 10 gallons LAsts much longer and is cheaper in the long run too

$15 for 500ml at big als Ich was a lot easier to cure than fin rot heh

Curvicep..

You could also try adding alittle aquarium salt to your tank. That will help promote healing and also is a stress reducer.

Bleeding Hearts are cool fish... Good Luck with them...

Babelfish,
how long did it take to cure the finrot using the jungle meds? I'm losing patience and need to free up my quarantine tank for new fish. thanks

fin rot can take a while to cure, and longer to heal up the fins. It really depeneds. Keep the water quality in your q-tine pristine, it will really help. I wouldn't buy anymore fish until you have this sorted out, tho.