Ammonia poisoning? So many problems! Need advice.

[AyalaCookiejar]

Okay, so my VT DaBaDee has been causing me so much stress in the past couple of days and I'm really at a loss because his symptoms are just all over the place.

First, on Wednesday, he seemed to be flashing against tank ornaments and twitchy. I thought it may be velvet since half of his body is a brownish color and his gills have a little bit of a color on them that shines gold in a flashlight, so I treated it with AQ salt and turned out the lights and turned up the temp. He is in a one gallon hospital tank that I have inside his 5 gallon tank to keep the temp stable.

Then, yesterday, he was very bloated and floating on his side and struggling to swim. His belly was very white. I did my 100% water change and switched to Epsom salt. He had very apparent stress stripes and could not swim downwards no matter how hard he tried. Also, his poo was floating. Does this have anything to do with the salt? It seemed kinda stringy but it wasn't white. It was coiled with a string kind of hanging off of it.

Today, he seems to be swimming better. He can now reach the bottom of the tank and can hold himself upright for the most part. Last night, he would tilt and was laying completely sideways when he stopped moving. Now he seems to have what I think may be the beginning of fin rot... The very, very tips of his anal fin look black, but I may just be seeing things..

Now, I have AQ salt, Epsom salt, Quick Cure and Stress Coat on-hand. However, I am treating the bloat and swimming issues with Epsom salt so I can't use both ES and AQ salt... I was wondering, can I use ES and mix both the Seachem Prime and the Stress Coat for his tail? I need the Prime because there is ammonia in my tap water.

I can't believe I didn't think of this before, but could his brownish color be a long-term effect of ammonia poisoning? He was in a 1 gallon tank before and I admit, I didn't keep up well with the water changes. I also didn't know I had ammonia in my tap water, so I didn't have a conditioner that neutralized it.



Right now...
1 gallon tank
80 degrees
I am not feeding him anything today
No filter, its a hospital tank
100% daily water changes
Treating with Epsom salt
Ammonia: 0 in both his hospital tank and 5 gallon tank (I don't know how, because my tap water has ammonia in it)
Nitrites:0
Nitrates: haven't tested yet


I don't know what to do! He keeps giving me mixed signals and now I'm not sure if he will ever get better because I have no idea what to treat...

[AyalaCookiejar]

This was him yesterday laying on his side at the water surface.


This is a close up of the brown color I am talking about.


A good picture of the goldish color on his gills...


Here is a better picture of how much of his body the brown covers.

[prodrumernate]

before i continue reading ur post..i want to throw this in really fast to kinda get things started..

take the hospital tank out and have it separate.if he has anything contagious.u culd be contaminating the main tank.

2 best medication for any fish is clean water and food..but it sound like u r over feeding and he got swim bladder disease..remember his stomach is about the size of his eye ball.so a pinch of any food is all he needs.he may act like he is hungry and want more.dont give in to that.i learned the hard way...skip 1 day a week to allow his digestive system to rest and catch up on whats already in his stomach.

for now stop adding AQ salt.i havent read yet on how much ur adding if u stated that in ur post.too much can harm him.

keeping him in a dark place with minimal disturbance is great.keep doing it.i will go back and finish reading anything and add anymore in if i feel needed :)

[prodrumernate]

opps i meant epsom salt...also water temp is a little high...keep it at 78...if ur 5 gallon is cycled.then adding the tap water with a little ammonia wont last long.though it could be the ammonia causing it if ur tap really has ammonia in it.....what r u using to test ur water?strips r not so accurate..API freshwater master test kit is the way to go.its a little pricey.but well worth it.and last a very long time.in the long run its cheaper than test strips.i got mine over 6 months ago.used it to test 3 tanks i cycled.and still have enough to do it again and again.and at about 40 bucks for everything.great deal..

looking at the pictures i really see nothing wrong..the spots could be just how he is.mine have it too after they got a little older and adjusted to their new home.my double tail make was mostly white with spot of colors.now he is vibrant in color and u can really find any white on him.

something else i wanted to mention but got distracted...hmmm if i remember ill come back and say it

[prodrumernate]

i remember now..its about his gills..as long as they are very dark in color like purple then his gills are fine.if they were purple or his gills were moving hard and fast like he is gasping for air.then i would be worried..

as for his tail...maybe fin rot.cant really tell.for that i would just change the water every day..thats the best thing for it.unless it progresses so badly and starts to affect most of his fins.water changes will be enough for it.plus u dont want to treat him for something u think he has and make him worse.so its better to keep it simple for now.watch him and go from there...sorry for typing so much.just wanted to throw in some info/advice...if ur really concerned and no1 else replies to ur post..u can contact OFL(OldFishLady) or even sakura..OFL is great with fish illness.

[AyalaCookiejar]

Thanks! I have the API freshwater master test kit. I use Prime and my tank has been successfully lowering the ammonia. I raised the temperature to try to speed up his digestive system, and I feed him 3 Omega One pellets a day and fast once a week with one freeze-dried bloodworm also once a week replacing only one meal. Epsom salt is more mild than AQ salt and can even be used long term, plus he's only at one tsp per gallon...

I think that his main tank is probably already contaminated if he does have something, but he is the only fish in the tank. I just cannot seem to figure out what it might be. SBD is likely but I'm getting so many different symptoms that are all over the place... :/ I don't have a heater to properly hear the one gallon so I can either float it in the main tank or risk him freezing/roasting.

I know that Epsom salt is pretty mild and Stress Coat has aloe Vera and is a water conditioner so I'm not sure if it would stress him more? I also don't know if I can mix ES, Stress Coat and Prime. Like I said, there is ammonia in the tap water so I definitely need the prime.

And he really seems less stressed now and just acts like he misses a bit of interaction, but he's still having some swimming issues :(

[prodrumernate]

ah then better to keep him like he is to keep the water temp stable.it almost sounds like he is just stressed...maybe a little over fed..but from what ur saying he isnt being over feed.try not to feed him for 2 days.as hard as it may sound.it wont hurt him.1 of my bettas i didnt feed for a week because he was passing anything and was constipated.

im not sure about the prime,ES and stress coat.i dont think it would hurt to mix them.prime being used to condition the water.stress coat to help with his skin and the ES to treat his tail and other simple things..id say its fine to mix them.as long as its not any medication.those are fine.just use as recommended.keep him in a dark place still.

treat the water,dont feed him a couple days.keep it dark.and see what happens.hopefully someone else who knows more will reply.if not posting again wont hurt especially if he gets worse.and keep me updated.im tired so not as focused as normal.but enough so not to say anything to harm him ;)

[AyalaCookiejar]

Thank you! He is already doing MUCH better than last night! I used the ES for the bloat... I'd use Stress Coat for his tail just in case if I was sure it wouldn't stress him and I could mix it with Prime. I don't really foresee a problem mixing conditioners but it would mean using 3x as much conditioner.. I fasted him today so hopefully I'll make it through tomorrow, haha. Poor guy. He gets so excited to see me and I've been keeping him all dark and isolated :/

I did PM OFL earlier since she always seems to know everything :p my biggest concern is whether this has just turned out to be bloat or SBD and stress or if there is a bigger issue... I'd really like to get him back to his 5 gal as soon as I can because he loves it.

[callistra]

He's got more info at the bottom of my thread if it helps anyone..
http://www.bettafish.com/showthread.php?t=122530&page=2

If he went for a long time with no conditioner in your tap water he could have any number of poisoning problems.. You always need to use conditioner with tap water, regardless if there is ammonia present or not. I think epsoms are a good place to start for this as they will help pull toxins out of his system and it's also has general antifungal properties as well.

There is nothing wrong with mixing prime with stress coat, though it's generally redundant. Since Prime is your general conditioner and you're targeting ammonia specifically that makes sense. And you're using stress coat for a temporary boost while he's healing. That's fine. Of course you can mix salt with conditioner.. no issues.

[Oldfishlady]

As per your PM request-First the brown is most likely normal pigment-next to understand- you are treating him in Epsom salt for buoyancy problem and now he is showing S/S of fin rot...Correct....

The Epsom salt will treat the rot too...How much Epsom salt are you using and are you using any tannins. What kind of water changes being made in Tx.