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Troubling pink, fleshy areas on scales. Some coloration on fin too...

11K views 102 replies 6 participants last post by  xjenuhfur 
#1 ·
Found Cobalt this morning with strange pink spots on his scales. It's like his blue scales have turned a pink, fleshy color (picture attached). It's been over a year since I've had him and this has never happened. I'm thinking it may be related to the mini-cycle I am finishing up since I changed my substrate and decor to sand and driftwood. Perhaps it's the change in pH from the tannins? Just performed a 50% water change...any ideas?

Housing
What size is your tank? 5 gallon
What temperature is your tank? 78
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? nerite snail

Food
What type of food do you feed your betta fish? pellets
How often do you feed your betta fish? twice a day, ~5-7 pellets each time

Maintenance
How often do you perform a water change? weekly
What percentage of the water do you change when you perform a water change? 30-40%
What type of additives do you add to the water when you perform a water change? conditioner and sometimes flourish excel

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

Ammonia: close to 0 ppm, definitely not greenish color which would mean .25 ppm
Nitrite:
Nitrate:
pH:
Hardness:
Alkalinity:

Symptoms and Treatment
How has your betta fish's appearance changed? spots of pink, fleshy scale color, some of the coloration on the top fin (see picture).
How has your betta fish's behavior changed? no notable behavioral changes
When did you start noticing the symptoms? about 1 hour ago when I checked on him this morning.
Have you started treating your fish? If so, how? Performed a water change
Does your fish have any history of being ill? no illness besides fin rot once and general stress spots that went away.
How old is your fish (approximately)? likely around 1.5 years.
 

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#73 ·
After 3 days of treatment, minor progress from yesterday. Fin rot seems to have stopped now. Finding lots of stress coat/clearish film particles in the water. Eating well, flaring and running away when I try to take pictures, and seems to be behaving well in general. The blue is only slightly more pronounced from yesterday.
 

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#77 ·
Last day of treatment, no noticeable changes from yesterday. He's still mostly pink in color and the bottom half of his front is a pale whitish color. Is it normal for fish not to be completely cured after the course of the medication?

I have enough Maracyn left for another dosage, and I also have the Jungle fungus clear fizz tabs now also. What should be the course of action at this point?
 

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#78 ·
Have you seen any poop? What color is it?

Sometimes it takes more than just a round of medication to get a betta fully better, depending on the situation.
 
#83 ·
Epsom salt. It can be used alongside meds, and keeps the internal track going. pre-dissolve 1-3 teaspoons per gallon gradually adding over time.
 
#84 ·
i find the bloated yellow belly to be bacterial. Parasites tend to cause sunken belly.. sometimes can get secondary bacterial that cause this though.
 
#86 ·
Personally I would say stay with the same meds rather than dosing him with another kind... Callistra, what's your thoughts?
 
#88 ·
That doesn't look like normal poop to me.. If you wanted to switch meds I'd switch to Kanaplex + Furan 2, otherwise I'd stick with what you have.
 
#91 ·
I would say it depends on how he is acting and how long he was on the last round. I would usually give a betta a week off meds if they've already gone 2 weeks, unless it seems like they might pass in that time.

Are you using epsom salt?
 
#92 ·
Haven't had time to get any salts, I'm going to try to find some time to get some this week. I was reading up on some other similar posts and found out I goofed up the medication; I mixed up the meds once at the beginning, dosed that for about 3 days, then remixed it on the 3rd day and dosed with that same mixture again for the remaining 2. The second round was pretty much all the same mixture of just the Maracyn I made up after the 5th day. I found this out on Sunday, so he's now had 2 doses with the mixture made up fresh. He has shown more blue coloration improvement on the side that has remained mostly pink during the past 10 days.

Should I follow your advise from this post (http://www.bettafish.com/showthread.php?t=91900&page=2#post967684) or just stop the meds altogether at this point? My case seems a bit different since I didn't wait a week between the courses of antibiotic and he's showing improvement after his last 2 days of (correct) treatment. He's also not showing the signs of dropsy at this point, and is still eating well.
 
#93 ·
Update: I decided against dosing any more Maracyn and am currently acclimating him back to plain water. I'm going to do my best to make a trip out tomorrow and get some epsom salts and perhaps start him on those by tomorrow. Do you think the Jungle Fizz tabs I have will work? The active ingredients are Nitrofurazone, Furazolidone, and Potassium Dichromate. The local pet store probably has Furan-2, so that is a possibility if you think it would be better than what I already have.

I'm thinking my plan of action will be to get him off the antibiotics for about 5-7 days and get him on epsom salts during that time. If his condition worsens during that time, I'll put him on the new antibiotic.
 
#94 ·
That might work but I'd be afraid to use it for very long because of the Potassium Dichromate which is a carcinogenic chemical not a medication.
 
#95 ·
Got some epsom salts today! I'm going to add them this evening when I do his water change. I was wondering if you think I should put him back in the big tank with epsom salts or just leave him in the QT bowl. I have live plants and a snail in my main tank as well as some driftwood which put off a bit of tannins (not as much as before, but the water is still slightly browned). It's been at least 2 weeks now for the tank to cycle, so I'm pretty sure it's stabilized...
 
#96 ·
Cycling takes up to two months. It won't cycle in two weeks..

Have you been testing and monitoring to see the ammonia spike and set at 0 and nitrite? Then you'll probably need to do a 90%+ change to deal with nitrates at this point..
 
#97 ·
Yah, decided against putting him back in, still tested for some nitrites. Did about 70% water change. I've been kind of focused on the QT tank and meds, etc. so haven't been thinking too much about the cycle. My snail is providing some bioload though so that should help. Going to keep Cobalt in QT with 100% water changes each day with about 1 tsp of epsom. If he starts to get noticeably worse before 5-7 days I'll start him on the jungle stuff.
 
#98 ·
Cobalt hasn't really gotten any worse but his condition hasn't really improved. I'm thinking of starting him on the jungle fizz tabs. I'm going to use the same method of dosing as the Maracyn (5 cups mixture, dose 1/2 cup for the gallon) but was wondering about the dosing frequency. The box says to do the initial dose (1 tab to each 10 gallons) and the second dose may be added in 4 days. Does this mean I mix up the 5 cups on the first day and dose for 4 days with that mixture (I do the 100% WC each day)? Is that correct or should I be doing a fresh mixture each day?
 
#100 ·
It's been a while since I posted an update, so I figured I'd post one.

I stopped the anti fungal medication around 2/13, so about 2 weeks ago. Since then I have been adding 1 tsp of epsom salts to the water during the once daily water change. It's been 12 days of the salts, so I stopped adding them to the water today since his condition was not showing any signs of changing or improving.

I'm beginning to lose my mind over this. His condition hasn't degraded nor has it improved over the past month, and this whole ordeal has been going on for 2 months now (not to mention the daily maintenance starting to take its toll). He's eating fine, acting fine, doesn't have raised scales, etc.

I've attached pictures of his current coloration, which has been like this for the past few weeks. Sometimes I think my mind plays tricks on me when I check his coloring; some days I think it's better, other days it's worse, then it's better again, etc...

My tank has been cycling since the beginning of this drama (1/1/13) and I just did some water parameter tests this evening:

Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 0

I have 3 developed plants (anubias, java fern, wisteria) and a snail that has been providing (alot) of bioload.

At this point my main concern is where to go from here. I really really would hate having to give him another medication, since that's so hard on his system, which has been through so much already. I've been considering moving him back into his home 5 gallon tank since the water parameters check out and there are still tannins being produced in the water from the driftwood.

Does anyone have any suggestions on what I should do at this point? My sanity would appreciate any advice.
 

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