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Sever Ammonia Burns...plz help!

853 views 8 replies 3 participants last post by  yumekon 
#1 ·
Hey guys!! I just got back from a 2 month vacation and had my neighbor take care of my fish, who definitely has no experience with fish care.

Now my poor guy has sever ammonia burns to his fins.

I was wondering is there something I can do for a speedy recovery of those beautiful fins? I'll do anything!!

Thanks for your help!!
 
#2 ·
How nice to have 2 months of vacation, hope you had a great time :)
Sorry to hear your betta is having fin issue.
Do you mean your betta has fin rots now? Could you try to post some photos of the fins in question?

If it is fin rot, super clean water is very crucial, if the case is bad, then aquarium salt is needed to fend off further infection. If you can fill out the sticky below as detail as you can?

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)?
 
#3 · (Edited)
Housing
What size is your tank? 2.5
What temperature is your tank? 70-78 F
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? New Life Spectrum
How often do you feed your betta fish? 1-2 pellets daily. Fast 1 day a week

Maintenance
How often do you perform a water change? normally once a week. Just got back from vacation so hasnt been changed for 2 months
What percentage of the water do you change when you perform a water change? 75% with vaccum
What type of additives do you add to the water when you perform a water change? water conditioner. tiny tiny tiny bit of aquarium salt for stress

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

Ammonia: before water change when i got back .10
Nitrite:
Nitrate:
pH:
Hardness:
Alkalinity:

Symptoms and Treatment
How has your betta fish's appearance changed? he is a delta tale, now looks like a crown; also had a tail biting incident a long time ago on the bottom fin that has an upside down U shape to it, still has not healed up. Wat do I do!!
How has your betta fish's behavior changed? he is more active now because i think of water change and new plants
When did you start noticing the symptoms? i just got back, he looks horrible but is acting fine
Have you started treating your fish? If so, how? water change, tiny tiny aquariuam salt, and 2 teaspoons of epsion salt.
Does your fish have any history of being ill? i have some suspisions of pop eye. We did have ammonia issues before.
How old is your fish (approximately)? i got him from petco June 2011


Before Vacation:




After:
Fins:




Eyes:






Hope this helps!!! Thanks guys!!!
 
#4 ·
What a handsome boy! Love the color!

That looks like tail biting to me. I don't see any obvious sign of infection/rot on him in the photos. Even with a 2.5 gal with filter, the general guideline is to remove close to a 100% water weekly if possible (best way is to monitor the ammonia level) unless you want to cycle the tank which may be possible, but extremely challenging for that size. Hopefully someone verse in tank cycling etc can give you some advice on this. Looks like you have live plants in your tank?

Also, I think you shouldn't mix aquarium salt and epsom salt together. From what I can see, I don't think you need either. Just super clean water to get him back to his glorious self. I think the tailbiting was started by how stressed he was in the old water for 2 months. So hopefully he will stop that and let his beautiful fin grown nice and strong.

Good luck and keep us posted.
 
#7 · (Edited)
Mixing AQ and Epsom is a bad ideal, and could have bad reactions- go ahead and take him out of both salts, acclimate him to no salt water. Good catch Earthworm.
Definitely tail biting- just keep up on the weekly water changes, adding in a few drops of Stress Coat in with your regular conditioner, and feed a variety of high protein diet to help his fins regrow and keep him healthy- as 1-2 pellets a day is pretty low, 2-3 per feeding, twice a day for a total of 4-6 a day is more ideal to give them the proper nutrition.
Don't add in AQ salt unless you are on a treatment plan with him for a specific illness- as excess use and over exposure can and tend to lead to a lot of health issues such as kidney/liver not properly working, and shutting down.

As Earthworm mentioned, he most likely got stressed due to having a dangerously long wait for a water change which caused him to bite his fins. It's very dangerous to go that long without a water change, and even more dangerous to do a large water change afterwards (your 75%). If you have to go a couple+ weeks with no water change always ideal to do small ones (10%) daily when you return for a few days as to not cause a system shock/crash and cause osmotic shock to your guy.

Question- your temp says 70-78... do you not have a thermometer to check? Or does it fluctuate? A heater, if working, should not cause fluctuations like that.. fluctuations of that magnitude could be very deadly. Stable temps is needed to not cause them to go into shock. Highly suggest either getting a thermometer to keep an eye on the temp, a new heater if your heater is going up and down in that big of a degree..

Good luck!
 
#8 ·
Thanks guys!!

Well my heat comes from the light, so when I turn to light off at night the temp goes down. I do have a thermometer. I'm trying a new technique to keep it between 78-82ish im getting as low as 76 now.

How can u tell between tail biting and fin rot?
 
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