Housing
What size is your tank? -- 5 Gallons
What temperature is your tank? --80 degrees
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? -- Hikari Betta pellets
How often do you feed your betta fish? -- Every day, 2-3 pellets
Maintenance
How often do you perform a water change? -- I haven't done any yet (tank just finished cycling), but I will once weekly.
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? -- The only additives in my tank is Prime water conditioner
Water Parameters:
Have you tested your water? If so, what are the following parameters?
Ammonia: - o
Nitrite: - 0
Nitrate: - 10 or 20. The colors are so similar on the chart I can't really distinguish.
pH: - 7.6
Hardness: I'm afraid I don't know how to determine either of these.
Alkalinity:
Symptoms and Treatment
How has your betta fish's appearance changed? - Colors are duller, fins clamped and he doesn't flare anymore.
How has your betta fish's behavior changed? - Other than not flaring, his behavior hasn't really changed. He's active and he still has his appetite.
When did you start noticing the symptoms? - 5 or so days ago it struck me that something wasn't right.
Have you started treating your fish? If so, how? - I haven't started any treatment.
Does your fish have any history of being ill? - He had some nasty finrot a couple moths ago.
How old is your fish (approximately)? I have no idea.
My betta, Hercule, has clamped fins, and I'm not sure what to do about it. I really didn't realize that anything was wrong until I was going through my phone the other day and saw the pictures I took of him when I had brought him home. I guess it happened gradually enough that I didn't notice right away... The then and now pictures look like two different fish.
I'd been keeping him in an unheated, unfiltered 1 gallon tank since I got him up until last night when I transferred him to his new home.
He explored a lot first thing, and then this morning he was laying at the bottom of the tank. I freaked out at first but after a while he started swimming around, and has been active ever since. He ate his breakfast like a little piggy.
It breaks my heart to see how much he's changed, and without me noticing. I feel horrible. Can someone please help me? I don't know what to do for him.
He could just be a bit overwhelmed with the new tank, I've had this happen before where a betta seems clamped and unhappy for 3 days or so, and then once they get used to it they perk up magnificently.
Another possibility is that the filter current is bugging him, if he didn't have one before that could take some getting used to. Are you able to adjust the filter flow at all?
My only other suggestion is to try some different food. Live or frozen treats offer nutrients that pellets don't and really contribute to betta coloration in my experience. Hikari has also downgraded the ingredients in its pellets recently, so most people no longer recommend it and prefer New Life Spectrum pellets or Omega One Betta Buffet pellets instead.
His fins were clamped before I put him into the new tank, but I hope he does perk up.
The plant I bought for the tank was too tall so I trimmed it, and I stuffed the leaves (fabric plant) into the outflow part of the filter. That slowed it some, but I think it's still a little too strong. I've been trying to figure out how to best slow it down. Any suggestions?
Does New Life Spectrum have a food special for bettas?
Was the tank unclean? I adopted a petco betta with finrot, clamped fins & dirty water. The fins were literally stiff. I kept him in a warm tank w/ 100% water changes every 24 hrs, & a tsp of AQ for his gallon tank. It was a very slow recovery, but after 2 weeks, his fins started to expand to HM. Now, almost a month later, he is a full HM. His fins are still a little tattered, but he's almost there! :D
Should I salt this tank, or wait to see if he perks up? If I do use salt, would I need to change the water like you did, even though the tank is cycled?
I would put salt in there. It won't hurt him, unless you put too much in there, or keep salt in his tank for more than 10 days. If it takes more than 10 days give him 2-3 days in just fresh clean water between salt treatments.
If you treat with salt, you have to do 100% water changes, or if you keep adding salt you'll overdose him. Besides which, clean water is one of the best treatments. Of course, since you have a 10 gal, that's kinda big to do daily changes. If you have a heated 1 or 2 gallon hospital tank it might work better.
If you want to just wait & see how he does, you can do that too. Just don't wait too long. :)
I kept the tank he was in clean as I could, changing the water (almost all of it) daily, and 100% about once a week and washing the inside of the tank. No soaps, just hot water.
The tank I have now is a 5 gallon, but I'm hesitant to do the 100% water changes only because he always got so pale and stressed when I had to move him in the other tank that I'm afraid to do that to him every day.
I still have the one gallon that he was in, but I don't have a heater for it. While the bigger tank was cycling I tried to find a small heater for the little tank, but I couldn't find anything that would keep stable temperature and not overheat.
Thank you so much for helping me. All this has me running around with my head cut off
His color is darker than it was, but his fins are still clamped. I'd like to try a salt treatment, but I don't feel like it's a good idea to put him back into cold water, so I have some questions on how I ought to proceed. Any advice you guys can give me would be great.
If I lowered the water level in my 5 gallon and turned the heater sideways, and then put the 1 gallon in there full of water, would the 1 gallon be kept warm?
Also, should I move the filter to the one gallon as to keep the bacteria alive, or would the salt harm it? The filter will fit into the 1 gallon (which doesn't seem right somehow) because they're made by the same company.
And finally, I think I ought to first thoroughly disinfect the 1 gallon just to cover all my bases. I know you're not supposed to use soap on it, so what's the best way to do that?
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