Sbd?

[earthworm88]

Great shots! Your camera is awesome. But poor guy I now really see the blood on the pectoral fins, and more lining the edges of the other fins and definitely worse than yesterday. My take on this is it could be a secondary bacterial infection. Hopefully the experts are up and about and be able to help.

Good luck!

[Sakura8]

Hi vier. I'm sorry your guy doesn't look so good. It looks like he has septicemia, an infection in the bloodstream. Also, do you happen to know what your nitrites, nitrates, and pH levels are? High levels of those can be just as bad as high levels of ammonia and high nitrate levels especially are known to cause shredded fins. It's so easy for us to forget to test those levels (I know I'm guilty of this) and only focus on ammonia levels.

For now, can you switch him from AQ salt to epsom salt? The epsom salts will help to pull fluids from his body, enabling him to fight back against the infection going on. The dosage you want is 2 tsps per gallon of the epsom salts.

Ideally, I'd like to keep him in the epsom salts for a week with daily changes and give him a chance to fight back on his own, because too much medicating can be just as bad as not enough. If by the end of the week, it looks like the epsoms are working, then we'll continue for another week.

Also, do you think you can add tannins into the water? You can do this by using Indian Almond Leaves (which, regrettably are hard to find and almost always have to be ordered online) or by crumbling clean, dried oak leaves into the water until it turns dark tea-colored. Tannins have some medicinal properties as well as the benefit of replicating a betta's natural habitat (dark colored waters).

But if he starts to take a turn for the worse at any time, we'll have to go straight to meds. Are you allergic to sulfa drugs?

[Vier]

Thanks for the reply.
He seems a bit more active today, still on the bottom. The red has not gotten worse, its fading and more..yellow? The red in his eyes are now yellow, and his scales are showing a yellow edging. Is this worse or better?

Since I've been keeping him in a tiny cup with daily changes, I didnt test for nitrites/trates :( Guilty!!! Assumed that if I couldn't detect ammonia, I wouldnt find other levels since it is not cycled. I will be checking the main tanks though, I ignore nitrites soo much and just check ammonia/nitrates : (

I was at a LFS today actually and picked up triple sulfa under some other people suggestions. I am wondering if I should use it now. I am 90% sure we don't have any epsom in the house, so should I
1. continue w/c and aq. salt
2. use the sulfa
3. grab epsom?
No IAL unfortunately, I kept thinking about buying them but decided not too. gee !

[Sakura8]

Don't worry, I always forget to test for nitrites/nitrates. Even now I tend to skip nitrites and test only nitrates. I figure, like you, if I find nitrates I won't find nitrites. >.>

Yellow. Interesting. Maybe it's the color of healing? Like how a black/blue bruise turns yellow before it disappears? With fish, I'm just not sure about that.

[Vier]

I can only hope that yellow is better than red @_@
I actually found epsom salt... so hes in some new water with that, no meds...




really hard to capture the yellow colouring with my lighting right now, but the red has disappeared from his front fins and looks a lot lighter on the rear ones

[Sakura8]

I really hope that's a good sign. I honestly don't know what yellow means because it's not a color that shows up in fish diseases that often. He does look better without the red, though.