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Sick betta! pale and reddish spots.

573 views 4 replies 3 participants last post by  Aus 
#1 ·
1. Size of tank? 2 Gallons

2. Water parameters
a. Ammonia? 0
b. Nitrite? 0
c. Nitrate? dont have a test kit, but did a 100% water change today
d. pH, KH and GH? Ph 6.6 -8
e. Test kit? API

3. Temperature? 20C

4. FW (fresh water) or BW (brackish)? FW

5. How long the aquarium has been set up? 1year 7 months 1 week 2 days

6. What fish do you have? How many are in your tank? How big are they? How long have you had them? One male betta who ive had for 2 years 7 months 1 week. He is just under 2 inches (not including tail)

7. Were the fish placed under quarantine period (minus the first batch from the point wherein the tank is ready to accommodate the inhabitants)? No as he is the only fish

8. a. Any live plants? Fake plants? 1 live plant that disintegrated. Now two plastic plants as of today.
b. Sand, gravel, bare bottom? Changed to sand about weeks ago.
c. Rocks, woods, fancy decors? Any hollow decors? 2 Plastic plants.

9. a. Filtration? No
b. Heater? No

10. a. Lighting schedule? What lights are used? When we get up to when we go to bed.
b. Any sunlight exposure? How long? Indirect for a couple of hours. <^ Has been like that for over 2.7 years.

11. a. Water change schedule? 1 week to 2 weeks
b. Volume of water changed? About 50ish%
c. Well water, tap water, RO water? Tap water
d. Water conditioner used? Prime
e. Frequency of gravel/sand (if any) vacuumed? Every Change, but now my gravel cleaner is broken, so im stirring the sand a cupping out the poop when I changed it today. Eww.

12. Foods? Betta pellets and sometime bloodworms
How often are they fed? 2 pellets/worms twice a day.

13. a. Any abnormal signs/symptoms? Rip fin down the middle of his tail fin, I red spot on his anal fin and on his back fin (cant remember name) a stringy white peice of fin.
b. Appearance of poop? I cant tell, but he is eating just fine (?)
c. Appearance of gills? Fine

14. a. Have you treated your fish ahead of diagnosis? Yes
b. What meds were used? I used Melafix

Please help me!! My friend emailed me a link about Columanris so im getting paranoid about that little white thread. I can tell if losing his colors make me paranoid about dropsy. Im just paranoid when my fish are sick. Ill try to get picture, but the camera make the patches hard to see.
 
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#2 ·
ok first off you need a better water changing schedule. For a 2 gallon without a filter you need to be doing 1 50% and 1 100% water change every week. Also you need a heater for this little guy. You need to have his water temp between 26C and 28C. So with all of that in mind I would guess he has external parasites or bacterial infection of some kind. Until we see a picture I would highly suggest a 100% water change with aq salt(1/2 tsp per gallon) and stress coat (1ml per gallon) added.
 
#3 ·
The only I skip are when I have a softball tournament, (or when im not here at all) which means up to four game a day starting there at 7am and leaving at 7pm, with maybe 1hour in between games and we cant leave. I then try to catch up during the week. The heater scares though because it is such a small tank and I dont want to boil him. I typoed that, it is actually 22C. sorry about that. I keep him in the warmest room in the house.

As for the AQ salt I didnt see any at my LFS, I have a spare 3.5 gallon tank but Im cycling that and Im going to use it as a QT for and Bubbles is going to get so depressed. And sint stress coat a water conditioner? Or am I thinking of water conditions that improve slime coat?

I was thinking the bacterial infection too, my BF might be here on the tenth (I think) so she'll have a look at him. Since I did the water change he perked up, Should I do a really small one every day to get the koodies out?

I know he doesn't have much time left, since hes over 3. But then again my BF had a friend who had a betta for 8 years . . . and that betta went down the drain . . . literally.

Hes been in an unheated tank all his life, so I think it would stress it out more then help him. And Columnaris attacks more at high temps so lower temps would help him right now anyway. And I will be uping the water change percent, definitely. Sorry if that doesnt make sense, I wrote some and then came back like 3 times . . . dont have a very good attention span.
 
#4 ·
The heat is kinda important with these guys, it leads to quite a few betta's downfall. I still highly suggest getting a heater, if you can find an adjustable one, or one that turns off at a certain temp that would be good. Aquarium salt should be at all pet stores hmmm. If you can try another place maybe, if not we'll do without. Stress coat is a conditioner but if you read the back of the bottle it also helps with fin and scale damages. You just double the normal dose for healing fins and scales.
 
#5 · (Edited)
- Take him off the Melafix.

- Do a 100% water change. Add a teaspoon of --well dissolved-- AQ salt per gallon (rock salt is fine too - and if you can't get that, a tsp of table salt to the whole tank is better than a dead betta, use that and do another 100% change tomorrow just with clean water, until you can get rock, kosher or aquarium salt).

He probably has ammonia poisoning, and that's what the red streaks/spots are. A little salt in his water will help him get rid of some of the poison. He MUST have clean water every few days in a tank that small. Once a week or gods forbid a fortnight isn't enough. Sooner or later, he'll get sick.. like he is.

Stress Coat will really help him.

And ... why is the QT tank bigger than your fish's living space? You can get adjustable mini-heaters pretty cheap, no risk of boiling your fish.
 
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