Advancing Fin Rot and possible tail biting! Please Help!

[Boann]

Hi,
I have been treating my classroom fish Midnight for fin rot. He is in a hospital tank and I have been treating him with aquarium salt (1 tsp per gallon of de-chlorinated water).
A week ago, he looked like he was healing- fins had clear/whitish growth on them. I didn't change his water during a long weekend from school, when I came back to the classroom he had regressed and more severely.
I began treatment again, and now I have upped the AQ salt dosage to 2 tsp per gallon, whilst doing 100% water changes daily (except for this Sunday), when I came back today (Monday) his top tail fin was half missing and looked extremely shredded!
I have noticed him try to bite his tail last week and wonder if part of his missing fin is due to biting and fin rot?

I am going to take him home with me so that I can do 100% water changes without worrying about the weekends.
Any other suggestions would be appreciated!
Thanks

[LittleBlueFishlets]

Could you please fill out this info form? http://www.bettafish.com/showthread.php?t=49233

Also, can you post a picture?

[Boann]

Right now Midnight is in a hospital tank- not his regular tank

Housing
What size is your tank? 1.5 gal
What temperature is your tank? 80
Does your tank have a filter? No
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? Betta Buffet and New Life Spectrum Pellets
How often do you feed your betta fish? 2 times a day 2-3 pellets a meal

Maintenance
How often do you perform a water change? 100% Daily
What percentage of the water do you change when you perform a water change? 100%
What type of additives do you add to the water when you perform a water change? Stress Coat and 1 tsp AQ salt per gallon

Water Parameters:
Have you tested your water? If so, what are the following parameters? Not testing water since I have been doing 100% water changes daily.

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

Symptoms and Treatment
How has your betta fish's appearance changed? Fins are shredded, Top tail fin is half missing.
How has your betta fish's behavior changed? No- still loves to eat and greet.
When did you start noticing the symptoms? 2 weeks ago.
Have you started treating your fish? If so, how? Yes, 1 tsp AQ salt per gallon of stress coat treated water, and 100% daily water changes. However, Midnight was showing signs of improvement prior to a long weekend from school, I did not go to the school to do any water changes because I was out of town, thus Midnight's condition totally relapsed, which I wasn't expecting at all.
Does your fish have any history of being ill? No, this is his 1st time being ill.
How old is your fish (approximately)? Less than a year old

In addition, I would like to say that prior to Midnight getting fin rot, I had him in a 3 gallon heated tank. I would do 100% water changes once a week. During X-mas break I took him home. I have an adjustable heater in his tank mainly for my home- which sometimes undergoes temperature drops. I beilive that while I was away on vacation the temp. went down and even though the heater was set to 84-86 degrees (which it never gets that hot- I had to set that way to compensate for my sometimes cold house). When we got back form vacation, the tank temperatures were down to 70 degrees! I think that my fish got stressed from the temp. dip.
After all of this, I am going to cycle my 3 gallon tank. I have another betta at home as well, he had fin rot too. After he healed, I cycled my 5 gallon ( and got the API master test kit to ensure cyclage was happening) which is doing great!

[Boann]

Attached are pictures of Midnight. He is a double tail, so he already has a natural split in his tail, can be confusing at times and sometimes alarming.

[callistra]

I see rot.

Personally I would stop the AQ treatment and switch to a broad spectrum antibiotic like Kanaplex, Furan 2 or Triple Sulfa, but that's up to you. Seems like this isn't responding to the salt.

Stress coat is good for regrowth if you can get the rot under control. Vitachem is also very good for regrowth.

[Boann]

I researched the meds you suggested. How do you treat with Kanaplex if you are putting it into a 1.5 gallon tank? When I read about Kanaplex, the site said that it had to be mixed with food and that fish internally absorb it- so does that mean they eat it or absorb it or both?
I have never seen or heard of Kanaplex, just curious about how it works. I will be going into town Saturday to get a broad spectrum med for bacterial infections- I live in the country so I don't have a good LFS. Will be looking for those meds, thanks for the advice.

[NorthernLights]

Kanaplex can be added to the water OR put with food. Your LFS might stock it (Seachem, the company that makes Prime water conditioner, makes Kanaplex. It's generic name is kanamyacin), but places like Petco and PetsMart do not. You best bet may be to order it online from a place like http://www.drsfostersmith.com.

That's where I got mine. I couldn't find it on Amazon at the time I ordered.

[callistra]

There's no point to mixing up feed in an external infection like this.

You dilute by taking 5 tablespoons of water and fully dissolving one measure scoop of Kanaplex. Then take 1.5 tablespoons of mixture into the bowl.

[Boann]

I thought I should update this. Since the last time I have posted to this thread I went ahead and got meds for my fish to help with the fin rot. I tried Kanaplex. Within the first 24 hours, all the new growth on Midnights fins deteriorated and began to bleed. I am not sure what happened. Does anyone know? I took him off of the Kanaplex and am back to AQ salt bath treatment. This has been the worst case of fin rot ever! I am really discouraged and feel really bad that my fish has been going through all this: healing then starting over again.

[callistra]

Salt can only be used for up to 10 days..

Kanaplex is good. It just needs time to work.. How much did you use? How did you dilute the scoop for your 1.5g?