Bettas fins becoming translucent - What is this?

[trevorck]

Hi everyone,

I've had my betta Scully for about 10 months. He's in a 2.5-gallon tank with a filter. Recently over the past month, I've noticed his lower fins have gradually been becoming translucent. I have no idea why. When I started noticing this, I replaced the filter more frequently, changed his water at least once a week (half the tank with treated water of course), and removed a new object I had recently added in case that was causing him stress and to give him more space. I feed him pellets and/or dried worms twice a day. During the most recent water change I scrubbed everything (no soap) and rinsed the sand, in case there was bacteria living in it.

Can anyone look at the photo and tell me what this is? I'm not sure if it's fin rot, old age, or what? I've Googled ad nauseum and can't find another betta that shows the same symptoms.

I have this Betta Revive medication, but haven't used it yet because I'd rather not give him unnecessary drugs if he doesn't need it.

Thanks for your help!!

[Water]

Is your fish acting normally? Eating, swimming around, etc.

[trevorck]

Around the time the translucency started, I thought he was becoming more lethargic. But I might have been reading into thing...

He's eating fine, making HUGE bubble nests, and seems active.

[Water]

Originally Posted by trevorck

Around the time the translucency started, I thought he was becoming more lethargic. But I might have been reading into thing...

He's eating fine, making HUGE bubble nests, and seems active.

I've been doing some research and I found this one link on here that says he could be marbling. So he might be changing his color or losing some to give off that marble look. If you just research "betta fish becoming transparent" you'll get a lot of hits on google and just look through them and see which answer is most prominently said. If he's eating fine and making bubble nests then it's probably this marble thing.

[Water]

http://bettysplendens.com/articles/p...articleid=1114

Read this, it's quite fantastic. :) It'd be so lovely if your fish continuously kept changing colors! It says that with age, your fish can change color if it has the marble jean. I'm actually jealous if its doing that! I want to see it's transformations.

[trevorck]

Thanks Water! I hope he is merely a mutant and not suffering from some disease. If anyone else has any insight please let me know! I'll post pictures of his 'transformation' if that is indeed what this is!

[Sowman]

What's funny is that my betta did the complete opposite. His fins were translucent white and over a period of 6 months he slowly changed to ALL BLACK. He is still happy swimming around.

[Water]

No problem :) I'm sure he'll be fine.

[Joytattoo]

wow thats really cool I hope I one day pick one up with a marbling gene

[trevorck]

So Scully is still losing color. But today he wasn't eating and I noticed a white stringy thing coming out of his. I googled this and the consensus is it's undigested poop because of an internal parasite.

Is this correct? And if so, is there a solution??