About treating tail rot

Question

i understand that it was my mistake and i take responsibility for this happening, but my male guppy has tail rot. he was part of an overcrowded tank, but has since been moved. he is now in a 9g on his own (apart from 3 juvinile males, just moved in there today and 2 golden apple snails). i do have aquarium salt on hand, could i treat it with salt alone or is it a must to treat the disease with medication as well? also, i have live plants in the tank. will the salinity of the water kill them? seeming the tank is 9 gallons, am i correct when i say i should be adding about 2 rounded tablespoons? i have never really used aquarium salt, i just want to make sure i am doing this right.

i dissolve the salt in a litre of water, and then add the water to the tank. when i do weekly gravel vaccuming/water changes, i add the correct dosage of salt to the water before adding it. i don't need to take out the carbon from my filter unless i am adding medication. when the fins begin to grow back, i can stop adding salt and whatever salt is currently in the water will eventually be taken care of after several weeks of water changes.

is that right?

one last thing: when water evaporates, it doesn't take any salt with it. by the time i have to do another water change i have to somehow compensate for this, but how? i don't knwo exactly how much water has evaporated. and when/if i add medication to the water, does the evaporated water carry the medication with it, or leave it behind like it does with salt?

i do have a white spot medication, not sure if this will do the same thing. apparantly some medications can treat a vast number of diseases.

thankyou for your time.

Answer 1

Salt may help the Guppies to cope with the stress, but it will kill most plants and will not affect the infection.  The bacterium responsible for fin rot successfully infects fish in even marine salinities, and merely tossing some salt in the tank won't cure it.  I would strongly suggest something like Maracyn 2, Maracyn TC, Furan 2, Triple Sulfa, Trisulfa, Kanaplex, or similar medications that are gram negative effective.  If using a tetracycline or minocycline based medication, keep the tank dark, as these drugs degrade with exposure to light.  Regardless of the medication, remove any activated carbon from the filter.

Evaporation removes nothing but water.  As the water evaporates, the salt will become more concentrated in the tank.  The best way to compensate for this would be to top off the tank with freshwater as needed.  The efficacy of the Ich medication on fin rot will depend on the specific medication.