possible finrot?

Question
hi,
i have a pair of blood red parrots. the male (i assume its the male) keeps digging in the cave that i have made for them and keeps removing the substrate. he also has black marks on his fins, lips and forehead. is this normal or does he have finrot? i have a community tank however none of the other fishes have this symtoms. the other parrot has a small black mark on her body. if he has finrot (worst case) then what medications would you reccommend? i usually put some ich medicine and chrolomycitin (antibiotic)in the tank to prevent diseases!

Answer
Hi Kunal;

Parrots often develop black spots as they mature. It's possible they have ammonia burns though. Check the ammonia levels to be sure and make weekly 25% water changes and weekly gravel vacuuming.

The best prevention for disease is to boost the immune systems of your fish naturally with fresh clean water once a week every week. Please don't add medicine to your fish tank unless the fish are actually sick. You can create problems in the future by doing that. What will happen is that the naturally occurring disease-causing organisms that are always in the water will become stronger and "immune to" the medicines over time. If your fish ever do actually get sick, the disease causing organisms can be so strong that no medicine can cure your fish. The diseases are just used to the medicine being in there and they aren't affected by it any more after awhile.

At Your Service;
Chris Robbins