Can a damaged dorsal fin recover?
 

So for the past year I've been fish sitting a friend's Goldstripe Maroon Clownfish. To put it nicely this fish is a $%^&ing !@#%$##.

Well, today ^%#er finally crossed the line and attacked my beautiful randall's goby who is by far my favourite fish in the tank. The clown did a pretty good number on my goby's nice big dorsal fin.

What I would like to know is, can a dorsal fin recover and regrow to an extent or do I now have a permanently mangled goby?

I suppose it depends on the extent of the damage.

My experience is that fins heal remarkably quickly...within days.

a sailfin we have at the store came in with no fin on top and it's growing back very nicely!

The fin will regrow, but his pride never will. Unless you get that goby to muster up some gusto and take on the clownfish. Battle royale style. Haha. I will relieve you of your fish-sittin duties shortly ;)

If some of the fin is left he will regrow it , i have a goby that was mauled by my hawkfish and he lost his little foot fin , hes realy shy now, taken him months jsut to come out when theres people around and he has a whole 15 gal to himself.

I have a sailfin tang that had almost no dorsal fin at all when I got it, it is taking sometime to grow back but it is.......slowly