Nipped Fin?

#1
This yellow tang has been through a lot. A few months ago, this fish was in the QT in Hypo, and then formalin dips to get rid of black ich. The display tank this fish in the video is in sat fallow for 8 weeks and has had no new fish introduced to the system. The clown in the video went through hypo and formalin with the YT.

I suspected fin-rot (because the term sounded like what I had, I've never had experience with it myself) so I went to one of the better LFS around where I live and the guy sounded pretty confident that this was a case of nipped fins. I cant see how this is possible as the hermit crabs I have are rather small, and the clown fish is friendly with the YT.

The water quality is pretty good, and I've recently been using a phosphate sponge and always use carbon in the WD filter.

Any ideas on what this is?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Bfy0iAxJRo
 

BrianH

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#2
I am not sure what it is. Seems like nipped fins usually look, to me, more split and frayed than that but clowns can be territorial jerks. A while back I had a conversation with Cris (fish and coral expert) at Aquatic Art about tang health strategy. His method for tang success is to focus on nutrition. Good nutrition builds a strong immune system. Then when the tang encounters stress and diseases, as it will throughout its tank life, it can naturally be resistant to it. His recommendation is a varied diet of frozen foods and sheets of nori soaked in garlic. I also put garlic in my thawed frozen foods. My suggestion to fix this fin problem would be to go this route with 3-5 small feedings per day of quality food soaked in garlic and reevaluate in a month. Good luck with whatever you decide to do.
 

SynDen

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#3
Looks to me like he might have had a go around with a pump or something. I would just keep an eye on it. If it continues to get worse then think about treating for fin rot but otherwise, as long as he is eating well and swimming about then I would say to just leave him be and see.
 
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