Last night we saw one of our gouramis has lost part of his tail, just looks shorter. What do you suggest we treat with for this & the white tips? We have a small crab & shrimp in there as well, thanks.

More than likely it is bacterial. There are several meds available, the moste efective (and messiest) is Tetracycline. I would remove the crab and shrimp and find another place to keep them until the treatment is through. Is it possible that the inverts are nipping at the fins?

I don't think so. We noticed this before we added the shrimp & crab and they are very tiny. They have only been in the tank for about a week. So many of the fish have these white tips now that we're thinking we'd better treat the entire tank. I'll remove the inverts, as you said. We have 2 other tanks we can put them in for now. Should we remove the live plants also? It's a 37-gal Eclipse tank with a couple inches of gravel on the bottom, heavily planted.

I do have some tetracycline capsules but have never had to use them so far. Also read somewhere that Jungle Fungus Eliminator is good to use with the T. Do you have any experience with this product? Thanks for the advice.

I'm showing my age here, but back in the days before anyone really checked much beyond pH ("gee, Grampa!") I remember reading that white fin tips were often a sign of either excessive acidity or alkalinity, or even water hardness. In other words the fin tips were literally being damaged, burned and/or bleached by the water. I have exactly this same thing on some blood fin tetras. They've been like this since I put them in my tank several years ago and they're doing just fine. The tank water is mildly acid but pretty hard, which you wouldn't think was likely but there it is.

I would remove the plants. I haven't used the Jungle product. What are its ingredients? Keep us posted.

Active ingredients are sodium chloride, nitrofurazone, furazolidone and potassium dichromate. I hope I got all that right. It's been 48 hrs today, so I'm going to do a water change tonite. I've been told these varieties of fish like a little aquarium salt added to the water, so I'll try that. Also I think Mr. Crab was the culprit that shortened the gourami's tail. It's a pretty clean cut, not ragged or shredded, so he's in his own small tank now and has a little sandy beach to bury in. No more playmates for him. We do have hard water here, so maybe that's causing some of their fins to look bleached. They haven't lost any fins and appear to behave normally. Can you correct a hard water problem? Thanks for all your responses.

A water softener product can be purchased at your petshop. One that I remember using, while back was one called Blackwater Tonic, by Tetra. It may not exist anymore but I'm sure there is something on the market.