any other ideas?

[Tikibirds]

Quote:
Housing
What size is your tank? 3 gallons
What temperature is your tank? 82
Does your tank have a filter? no
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? no

Food
What type of food do you feed your betta fish? new life spectrum pellets
How often do you feed your betta fish? about 6 pellets a day since they are small

Maintenance
How often do you perform a water change? 2X a week
What percentage of the water do you change when you perform a water change? 100%
What type of additives do you add to the water when you perform a water change? Either Prime or stress coat

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? Very clamped, looking skinny, lethargic
How has your betta fish's behavior changed? he has been clamped since I got him several months ago
When did you start noticing the symptoms? Pretty much since I had him but he has recently gotten worse - before he acted normal but was always clamped
Have you started treating your fish? If so, how? I haven't
Does your fish have any history of being ill? not with any illness I can identify
How old is your fish (approximately)?No idea..got him from walmart maybe 5-6 months ago

I can not, for the life of me figure out what this guys issue is. He is always clamped. He kinda is acting like a fish that has been in nasty unchanged water for the last 5 months but i KNOW that is not the case. I tried him in everything from a 1 gallon to a 10 gallon and nothing has changed. In the past week or so he has gotten worse. he was never really active but I spent like 10 minutes trying to find him in a 3G kritter keeper and he was on the bottom of the tank the whole time.

He does still eat and the poop looks normal but he seems to be getting skinny.

I don't know if I should treat him for internal parasites or maybe an internal bacterial infection or what.

He is supposed to look like this but his tail fin is so clamped right now- its maybe as thick as a line made by a sharpie. And he has lost weight since this pic

[Goldibug]

Is his eye cloudy or was that just from the flash on the camera? Is he showing any signs of fin rot (black edged fins, shredded or melted looking)? He's a veil tail betta and their fins are always long and droopy. If he doesn't look like he has fin rot it sounds like he may just be bored. Rearrange his tank or give him new tank ornaments. Sometimes that's all that is needed to bring their spunk back.

[Sakura8]

Let's start with General Cure. If it's parasites, either internal or external, it will do the job. If it's bacterial then at least the metronidazole will help a little and we can go from there.

Take the snail out though. Snails are pretty sensitive to most medications.

Poor Iroh. :(

[Tikibirds]

I think that was just the flash..his eye area is actually pretty dark and he hasn't been with a snail since about May.
No fin rot but he did bite his fins when I tried him in a divided tank and they haven't really healed. I thuogh he might be stressed by open spaces so I stuffed alot of silk plants in his tank but it made no difference.

I'll start the general cure tomorrow but I think I tried this on him the same time I tried it on derpy. Or maybe it was tetracycline. I tried something on him a while back.

[Sakura8]

I hate the ones who have symptoms that make it impossible to diagnose. Got any Indian Almond Leaves or oak leaves? After you finish the General Cure, toss some IAL in there.

Since I honestly couldn't say what his problem is from his symptoms, I hesitate to treat him with anything stronger than General Cure. :(

Have you checked your pH though? I wonder if it fluctuates. One way to tell is to fill a container with dechlorinated tap water and test the pH every few hours for 24 hours. If you get wildly different readings each time, your KH is low and your water is not buffered. That would mean your pH won't ever stay stable and fluctuating pH can cause severe stress on a fishy. If that did turn out to be the case, you'd have to get something that balances your KH out.

Keeping fish so much more complicated than just putting them in water. :( Why must it be so complicated?!?

[Tikibirds]

Wouldn't the other fish be as affected if it was a PH issue? As far as I know, it was only the 20G with the mopani wood that has a low PH and the only reason I even noticed something was wrong was the snails never came out of their shells.

He is looking pretty bad right now. He was laying on the rocks then he swam like a bat out of hell to the surface and then just floated there with his head up and tail down. Now he is back to laying lifeless on the rocks.

Tanagora also seems to have similar issues with the clamped fins and skinny BUT he is alert and active. I think part of his issue was he did not like the whole divided tank thing? I gave him some general cure as well.

[Tikibirds]

Not looking too hot

[Goldibug]

Shine a flash light near his gills. Does he look gold? I'm wondering if its velvet. I'm battling it on my tank right now and my cories were acting just like this. Pale coloring, listless, hanging on the bottom a ton, struggling to get air. Anyway, shine the flash light on him and look for shiny gold dust. If he doesn't have it that'll be fantastic! Just want to rule it out.

[Tikibirds]

Sadly he passed away sometime during the night.

I don't think he had velvet, didn't see any gold flakes on him or ick, no fuzz either. He hasn't been completly normal for months so whatever it was, he had for a long time.

[Goldibug]

I'm sorry to hear that :(