Otis is a "problem fish" as my roommate calls him. As soon as his healing for his last problem is almost complete, he has another issue. My crowntail, Otis, has a giant white patch on his head that almost looks scaly. It's not fuzzy or stringy. It kinda looks a little crusty. He's acting his normal, feisty, active self, and still eats like normal. Not sluggish at all. Could it be ick?
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Housing
What size is your tank? 2.5 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? Pellets
How often do you feed your betta fish? 3 times a day, 1-2 pellets each time
Maintenance
How often do you perform a water change? Once a week.
What percentage of the water do you change when you perform a water change? 50-75%
What type of additives do you add to the water when you perform a water change? Betta Water conditioner
Water Parameters:
Have you tested your water? If so, what are the following parameters? Have not tested the parameters.
Symptoms and Treatment
How has your betta fish's appearance changed? White, crusty patch on head.
How has your betta fish's behavior changed? No change.
When did you start noticing the symptoms? A few days ago. (around 2/14)
Have you started treating your fish? If so, how? Just a water change.
Does your fish have any history of being ill? Just some slight color changes. He does bite off his fins.
How old is your fish (approximately)? I'm not really sure. I got him from Petsmart 5 months ago. So maybe about a year?
Could you get a bigger or closer picture of it?
Its hard to see, but almost looks like he might just be marbling to me.
Also, I noticed you are only doing 1 water change a week. on a 2.5 gallon tank you should be doing 1 50% and 1 100% each week. If it really is a health problem (Which I'm not sure it is) then you will want to keep the water quality as good as possible to have the best chance at recovery.
Since you have a filter-I wouldn't make any 100%, however, the system and Betta might benefit from twice weekly 50%...1-50% water only and 1-50% that include the substrate by vacuum or stir and dip method. Unless you have active growing live plants.
As for the white patch-it is hard to tell much by the pic, however, since he is otherwise acting his normal self and the area in question isn't fuzzy-I would just watch it for now-It might be normal color changes....
The only other thing I could think of would be body slime infection but that is described as a white film. I've personally never seen it. If he has no behavioral changes, it could be marbling.
Could you provide a picture of him from the side so we can see his normal coloring? Marbling often happens randomly and quickly. I'd get pictures of it daily so if it is marbling, you will have some pictures of the process.
I think its very possible that he is just marbling. He looks like he has that marble coloring, IMO.
If he isn't acting strange at all then I wouldn't worry. Sometimes bettas marble and get a white patch that disappears to their normal coloring later. Sometimes their whole body changes colors. My CT Bahari marbled and lost the blue coloring in his fins so I got pictures of the process. I love seeing pictures of bettas marbling and glad I have pictures of Bahari :)
Edit: I've also seen another member on here who had a red and blue fish like yours that marbled into red, white, and blue. It looked very neat!
Okay, thank you! I actually didn't notice the red and kinda bluish tint the white had, but when I saw the picture on my computer, I was pretty surprised. He's actually be changing color quite recently (his dorsal fin used to be completely blue) so him marbling isn't really surprising. If he does marble out all the way, I'll be excited to see!!
Yeah I really think that its just marbling, especially after seeing that side-shot and how his fins look.
Like Ayala said -- as long as he is acting normal, active, and eating right I wouldnt worry about it. If you notice his behavior change then its time to come back and re-evaluate. But it really doesnt look like anything to worry about.
I think the Betta I saw that was red and blue marbled and started as white on the body and it spread to the fins so the base of the fins were white and the ends were red and blue. It made me feel patriotic, lol.
If he continues to marble, I would love to see more pictures. Red, white and blue coloring is really neat!
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