Bacteria? And now what?

[Shadyr]

Tank is unfiltered 2.5G, water changes 2x a week 50%.
Heated, temp set on 82
Have been keeping IAL in his tank since I got them.
Some live plants, which also were looking poorly.
Don't have a test kit, so I am unsure on water parameters.
Feed 2-3 pellets morning and night of Omega One Betta buffet
tankmate: 1 apple snail

So my son came to me Saturday night upset and said something was wrong with Lavatail. I looked, and in the two days since the last water change, his tank had gotten very cloudy (didn't appear to be anything moving under it's own power, at least?) and sure enough, Lavatail's tail was under attack.

I put him in QT with aquarium salt immediately, put his plants and snail in a plant QT, not sure if I'm going to keep the plants at all. After a day, his tail cleared, but now after 4 days, it looks either like he's shedding his slime coat (which he has done before) or something else is going on.

QT is a medium KK
Temp at 80
IAL
AQ salt at 1 heaping TSP per water changes

I was changing the water every two days 100% - think I might do daily 100%s at this point. Am I on the right track? Pictures below. So far, he is acting completely normal, which allows me to stay on the proper side of panic! And he's shed slime coat before, but never this much. Any advice or reassurance will be appreciated!

Day 1



Day 2 - it looks like it cleared up amazingly well! Right?



Day 4 - Wrong! Maybe whatever it was damaged the rays and now it looks like he might lose the tips?



*frets*

[goldfishyman]

Well, unfiltered tank with indian almond leaves and then doing water changes several times a week is your problem.

You either filter your tank or if your going to use indian almond leaves do not mess with the water. The purpose of indian almond leaves is that it provides the fish protection from ammonia when it turns the waters PH acidic. In addition it also has antifungal properties. Changing the water dilutes the acidity and removes the antifungal agents the leaf releases. When water is acidic it changes ammonia to ammonium and makes it sort of inert, as in it will not cause your fish harm.

Treatment for your fish. Fresh water with salt and half dosage of bettafix. Bettafix IMO will not hurt their labyrinth organ if your tank has an opening to let the vapors escape out the top.

[ukandy]

also Bettas kept in IAL for a long time tend not to do well with a quick change to clear water even if the PH stays the same. They need ti reacclimatize

[Shadyr]

I keep him in IAL because he's had a history of getting sick under the same conditions my other three were thriving in - I think it's possible he has a low immune system. Which is a shame, because he has the most personality of any of the bettas we have. I wasn't putting it in for water balance, I was after the immune/anti-fungal effects. Now after seeing your posts, I read more and it does look like I should be pretreating his water changes with IAL if I want to continue to go that route.

He was acting fine but looking more alarming last night - I stopped the salt and put meds in his water for a fungal infection. He was flaring at me and hungry like always this morning. We'll see how it goes.