Trimming fins

[PhishPhreek]

It has been suggested that if you have a bad case of fin rot after you get it under control and the fins are ragged, you should trim the fins smoth and that will help them grow back evenly.

Has anyone trimmed fins ?
Did you use chemicals or a knife blade ?
How well did it work ?

I have also herd that trimming a guppy's huge tail or a lyretail sword's gonopodum will increase your chances to breed them.
How did you do it ?
How well did it work ?

[eklikewhoa]

Re: Trimming fins

There was recent discussion about this on guppies.com/forums


I have done this to our old Asian Gold/Green Arowana.
No chemicals, surgical scissors... Aquarium salt when done along with water change..Amquel and NovaAqua conditioners used.
Worked great! super stressful though for both the fish and really the owner.

I have not heard anything about the gonopodum... 8O ouch... but what I read about the tail thing was for some guppies that have super overgrown tails which complicate swimming/life/breeding in which you are forced to trim. IMO if they are swimming fine and chasing females I would leave it alone.

[wvgdiscus]

Re: Trimming fins

Trimming is old trick used for show fish.

You will need to learn how to hold the fish while spreading out the fins & trimming the fins all at the same time.

[guppymax]

Re: Trimming fins

I know a guppy breeder who notches female tails for identification. He paints them with melifix afterwards. If anyone has any guppies with oversized tails that have trouble swimming around I will be happy to take them off of your hands LOL.

max

[PhishPhreek]

Re: Trimming fins

I have herd that some plakat (wild short fined fighting fish) breeders trim their fins and let them grow back as many as 4 times because the scar tissue makes the fins thicker and harder to tear in a fight.

And I have herd about show fish being trimmed so as to look like they have perfetect fins.

But I remember a guppy breeder from Brazil telling me the he trimed the male guppy's tail with a chemical and an eyedropper because it was painless and sealed the wound at the same time.

Anyone know what chemical he was talking about ?

[AnotherWoogie]

Re: Trimming fins

This is really interesting, but how healthy is it?

[PhishPhreek]

Re: Trimming fins

Depends on what your defination of "healthy" is and how you measure it.  

If it is done to help them heal or to help them have a more active sex life, then imho it is big badaboom healthy

If it is done just to win a ribbon, I would say no on first pass.
But if the choise is to cull a fish with bad fins or trim his fins and show /sell him, then I would guess that being a cull is less healthy.

Kind of like taking away the fighting rooster just to kill him is more humain (not).

[Juicy]

Re: Trimming fins

PhishPhreak, I read an article about that several months ago with instructions on how to do it to a betta...I found it again...here's the link...

http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art23741.asp

is this for a betta? let us know how it works out...



Juicy ><)))))*>

[Fire_chair]

Re: Trimming fins

A blow-torch works great, trimmer and cauterizer all in one.

[PhishPhreek]

Re: Trimming fins

I take it, that's from personal experience ?
Well, I ddo have a mini (pin point) propane torch,  
but I don't think I have a steady enough hand to use it.

[AnotherWoogie]

Re: Trimming fins

Oh my...one slip of the hand with that and you'll be having fish for dinner... O.O

[Fire_chair]

Re: Trimming fins

It's win win, and if you're good you can write your name.