Help! My Betta is sick

[Torres77515]

Bluie is such an awesome fish but he's become sick. I know fin rot and velvet for sure. He's red and scratching on his rocks. He swells up after he eats and towards the middle of his body he stays swollen. Very active eats well. I
Moving him to a smaller hospital tank to clean he's water daily. I bought Betta fix and tetracycline. Always use stress coat,aquarium salt quick start change water twice week in a 2.5 heated 80-82 tank. Eats hikari bio gold pellets daily and once a week frozen brine shrimp. I have 3 other bettas and 2 hold fish and all are ok!

[rubinthebetta]

Can you fill this out?

Housing:
What size is your tank?
What temperature is your tank?
Does your tank have a filter?
Does your tank have an air stone or other type of aeration?
Is your tank heated?
What tank mates does your betta fish live with?

Food:
What type of food do you feed your betta fish?
How often do you feed your betta fish?

Maintenance:
How often do you perform a water change?
What percentage of the water do you change when you perform a water change?
What type of additives do you add to the water when you perform a water change?

Water Parameters:
Have you tested your water? If so, what are the following parameters?

Ammonia:
Nitrite:
Nitrate:
pH:
Hardness:
Alkalinity:

Symptoms and Treatment:
How has your betta fish's appearance changed?
How has your betta fish's behavior changed?
When did you start noticing the symptoms?
Have you started treating your fish? If so, how?
Does your fish have any history of being ill?
How old is your fish (approximately)?

[Torres77515]

Housing:
What size is your tank? 2.5
What temperature is your tank? 80-82
Does your tank have a filter? yes
Does your tank have an air stone or other type of aeration? no
Is your tank heated? yes
What tank mates does your betta fish live with? none

Food:
What type of food do you feed your betta fish? hikari bio gold 2 pellets every evening,1 time a week brine shrimp
How often do you feed your betta fish? daily

Maintenance:
How often do you perform a water change? 50 percent twice a week
What percentage of the water do you change when you perform a water change?50 What type of additives do you add to the water when you perform a water change? aqurium salt,stress coat,quick start

Water Parameters:
Have you tested your water? If so, what are the following parameters?

Ammonia
Nitrite:
Nitrate:
pH:
Hardness:
Alkalinity I dont know need kit

Symptoms and Treatment:red,itchy,fin rot,orange eyes,swollen belly
How has your betta fish's appearance changed?withering
How has your betta fish's behavior changed?same happy lucky going guy
When did you start noticing the symptoms? 2 weeks ago
Have you started treating your fish? If so, how? 1 treatment of tetracycline
Does your fish have any history of being ill?no
How old is your fish (approximately)?bought him and 3 others 2 months ago

[callistra]

What you have chosen to treat him with will not likely help his symptoms.

Where do you see velvet? The pin holes in the fins indicate ammonia burns, and that could also cause the flashing. This is what Velvet looks like:
http://media.beta.photobucket.com/us...rimary]=images
http://www.bettafish.com/attachment....3&d=1315280143
http://www.bettainfo.com/wp-content/...ta_velvet1.jpg
He for sure has fin rot and/or ammonia burns.

Don't use AQ regularly. That can cause organ failure. You only want to use it 10 days max for specific treatment. Also you use salt or antibiotics/meds - not both together.

Your fish needs one fast day a week with no food. You mention bloating.. you should know Hikari is one of the worst for that because of the high wheat content. A good quality pellet will have the first two or three ingredients as whole fish - not fishmeal and wheat is even worse. Brine shrimp are an ok treat.. pellet's size chunk of frozen. Don't just like throw like quarter cube in there. That will definitely cause all sorts of problems. Does he poop daily? What color is his poop? He may have an internal infection at this point.

What filter are you using? How long was his tank set up? Any time you want to run a filter to cycle a tank and not do weekly 100% water changes you need to use a drops kit for ammonia, nitrite and nitrate to test your water. Most people will tell you not to even try to cycle anything under 5 gallons and to always just do the 100% weekly changes regardless, but you can try. Cycling can take up to 2 months. After this time I would test his water twice weekly to make sure ammonia and nitrite are at 0 and nitrates stay under 20ppm. At this point 2 50% water changes - one of which must include a thorough vacuuming of the gravel or the stir/dip method - might be all that's needed. In the meantime you should have been testing daily for ammonia and nitrite and doing a 50% water change any time you saw either hit as little as .25ppm + a weekly 50% change with vacuum gravel. You would have seen an ammonia spike, then nitrite spike. Ammonia would have gone to zero first then nitrite. If you didn't cycle like this that's why his fins are all rotted/burned up. I would definitely get a kit to test his water or have it tested - ask for levels with a drops kit not "it's okay" and/or strip tests.

Have you done a 100% water change to remove the meds yet, or run carbon in your filter for at least 24 hours?

[Torres77515]

He has gold dusted under belly and around fins and I thought that was called velvet. I recently bought 4 of the 2.5 Betta bows from petsmart and was told I didn't have to cycle them. My other 3 bettas are SO beautiful and happy going. He poops daily and it looks dry and brown pellets. I just put him in a smaller tank to take care of him better. I bought Betta fix I haven't added anything to his tank what should I do? I love him he is my favorite of the 4 he's such a character!

[callistra]

That sounds like it might be Velvet. Some bettas have that as their normal color but if it looks like those photos it's velvet. I just can't see based on the photos you've shown.

You don't have to cycle them but if you don't cycle them you need 2 water changes a week - one 50% and one 100% which includes a thorough rinsing of the gravel and all dechor. Running a filter and not doing 100% water changes you are automatically cycling.. you're just doing it blindly which can have results like these.

No internal infection then. That's good. I would treat by increasing water changes as outlined above and either using aquarium salt and increasing temps to 85F for fin rot and ick. Guide talks about it here.. just follow the guide for ick/velvet and it should cure the fin rot as well. http://www.bettafish.com/showthread.php?t=73332 If the rot does not clear or starts to get worse you'll need an antibiotic like Kanaplex by Seachem Maracyn Plus or Furan 2.

[Torres77515]

Thank you I will try the recommend link you added! I think he will be ok!