Well, this post is dedicated to my old Crowntail Betta, Olly "Gaylord" Francis.
Warning: Olly has quite a long story. It's a short, long story. It'll make sense in a few moments.
I owned Olly for a short span of only four days. He was purchased from Wal-Mart on January 24th, 2013. When I bought Olly, he was extremely sluggish and his tail appeared to be "falling off". I was torn on buying him, but I ended up adoring him. Part of his death was my fault as I wasn't as educated on Betta illnesses and assumed when I got him home he'd improve. That wasn't the case, however.
Day One:
I bought Olly, brought him home and put him into his tank. He seemed to perk up a bit in his warmer tank. We allowed him to settle for awhile and then tried giving him a couple pellets. He acknowledged that there was food, but he refused to touch it. We [my friend was with me] assumed he might have already eaten or was stressed from being in a cup to a larger tank.
Day Two:
In the morning, Olly still refused to eat and was still sluggish. We left for the day to run errands, but we got back around 7pm and Olly was on the bottom of the tank on his side. I took his decor out of his tank and poured about half of his water out so he could surface much easier. Of course by now I had a fear he was much more ill than being merely stressed from being in a cup, but friends, family, and a few people from the internet said since it was only 'Day Two' I couldn't tell if it was medical or stress. I made Olly a promise to go to town to consult a specialist and see about getting medicine to treat any potential problems.
Day Three:
The day I scheduled to go get medicine, we were iced in. If I didn't have a low profile car with rear-wheel drive I would've poked on over to the store, however my car gets stuck in 2 inch snow so I didn't want to test my luck. The snow plows were coming through hour by hour salting and clearing the roads little by little. Again, Olly wasn't touching his food and still looked down. His tail looked more ragged than usual. Some people still told me he was just stressed and I couldn't find any definite matches for an illness, so I was still completely lost and Olly still deteriorating. I can't even imagine the suffering poor Olly had as I tried figuring out what was wrong with him. For hours I searched for answers to no avail. By 10:30pm though, the answer came. The road crew continued to drive through the subdivision, clearing the roads and Olly continued to get worse.
At this point I had tried everything (except medicine) I knew to try.
Before I went to bed, Olly gained one more symptom which would define his illness finally. He had a white cotton-like substance coming from his gills. It was the first time it had showed, but it was there. My poor boy had Columnaris and his tail still seemed weak which we figured was Tail Rot.
I did research on appropriate medicines and was going to get some first thing in the morning.
Day Four:
I woke up bright and early to go get medicine for my dear Olly. When I went to check on him, he was still alive, swimming around (barely) and his tail was falling off bit by bit. I was absolutely devastated that this disease was taking its toll on my boy. I hurried and got ready by tossing my hair into a ponytail, brushing my teeth, etc. In ten minutes, I was finished and went to Olly's tank to tell him goodbye and to put my pooch in her kennel. When I walked over to Olly's tank, he had just passed away.
I know it was only four days and I probably shouldn't have been so attached to a fish, but I was. January 28th, 2013 was an absolutely upsetting and devastating day in my house.
Days later I went back to Wal-Mart to get a few things including new gravel for when I got a new fish, numerous fish they had when I purchased Olly had cotton-like growth on their bodies. It was very upsetting.
Without further-ado, Olly "Gaylord" Francis.
SIP.
Check out the eBook Betta Fish Care Made Easy
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