I have a female bristlenose Aucistris who has co-habited with red ears and snake necks with no issues for the past 10mths. However 2 days ago I swapped some turtles about and put 2 new 4yr old snake necks in with her... The next morning she had 2/3rds of her back fin (dorsal fin is it??) missing and several pieces out of her tail. She's still swimming fine and I've given her a large fake island thing to hide in. Will the fins grow back? Do I need to do anything for her? (Apart from keep the new snake necks away from her?) I don't know alot about cat fish, other than she's really cool to look at and does wonders with cleaning the tank and I feel terrible that this has happened to her. Any ideas or suggestions would be gratefully recieved. ( They also killed the golden algae eater by biting its dosal fin off completely... Quite a surprise when even a 22yr old red ear hadn't bothered them at all prior to this.)

Watch for infections or fungal attacks, I have successfully treated my BN with furan 2 if it looks dodgy i'd isolate her and give her a course of that. BN are tough, but I wouldn't keep em with any turtles I know. Good luck

Hi Donna same thing happened to me so dont feel to bad.I used tonic salt with mine,1 table spoon to twenty litres.It healed okay.

As said, watch for infections and fungal attacks and keep the water quality as good as you can. If it hasn't been bitten too far down it should grow out again.

Thanks for all that, really appreciated. I've popped her in with 4x 4mth old RES so don't think they'll be able to do too much damage... I'll keep a look out for any fungus etc and heres hoping the fins may grow back!

Yeah goodluck!- BN's are tough. Put some Methyline blue to take care of any fungus

Well the fins are growing back, (really fast), theres no sign of infection and seems to be doing fine! Yay