Oh no. :(

[onekatietwo]

I'm worried my new fish is sick. I figured he would be because I just got him for walmart and he didn't really look great (none of them did) but since i"ve gotten him home he's been EXTREMELY active (I've had him for three or four days. I've never really seen him sleep or rest for more than a few seconds or so) I was almost worried he was TOO active. He spent all his time either flaring at nothing (or his reflection or something) or zipping around the edges of the tank, seemingly contendedly. He was doing this last night when I went to bed (which was extremely late. Like 3 am) and when I woke up this morning at about 10, he was just kind of floating at the top. It didn't concern me much at first because I figured he would have to rest eventually but he hasn't become anymore active and it's 12:30 now.

I looked him over really well with my bike light and didn't notice anything. However, just a bit ago I notiched he has some weird transparent thing seemingly attached to one of his gills or somewhere around there. It looks like a fungus hyphae or some kind of algae. It's totally transparent and rather small (probably about half an inch long, but really thin) there's no way I would have noticed it was there but it happened to get a bubble attached to the top of it and so then when my fish swam down he had this mysterious bubble always following right above his head.

Anybody have any ideas?

Oh, also, there is a little bulge where (I think) his swim bladder is. I'm not sure if this is normal or not. It's not very large and when he does swim, he swims perfectly normally.

Here's this first post info thing:
1. Size of aquarium: 5 gallons
3. How long the aquarium has been set up: 4 or 5 days
5. Are there live plants in the aquarium: Two. I don't know what they're called. "something grass" from petco.
6. What temperature is the tank water currently: A slight bit over 80. However, I just got the thermometer last night. It was a slight bit over 80 when I went to bed, but when I woke up it was probably 83-ish. Quite warm, anyway. I since turned it back down. This might ahve something to do iwth it.
7. What make/model filter are you using: I don't know. It hangs off the tank. I only use it at night when his light is off or at certain times of the day. The current it too strong, but my house is really cold so I have it on somtimes to mix up the water because the temp at the bottom gets way cooler than the temp at the top if i don't.
9. Does your aquarium receive natural sunlight at any given part of the day: Not really
10. When did you perform your last water exchange, and how much water was changed: I've only done one so far and it was about 30 percent. That was yesterday.
12. How often and what foods do you feed your fish: I fed him about 5 or 6... MAYBE 7 of those hikari betta bio-gold pellets for the second and third day I had him. Yesterday I did a lot of reading about betta illnesses and saw that many could be attributed to overfeeding so I decided to only feed him one yesterday. I haven't fed him yet today since he seems a little off.
13. What type of lighting are you using and how long is it kept on: This really crappy dim ish bulb that came with the tank. It's incandescent. It's probably on most days at least 12 hours. A bit more.


I might just be overreacting, but any help or info would be appreciated. could it have to do with how hot his tank got last night?

[onekatietwo]

Ok, something is definitely wrong. He hasn't flared all day (and he seriously used to pretty much be CONSTANTLY flared) and I've noticed that he has more of the transparent things around his head area. I can't get any pictures of it, obviously, you can barely see it anyway, but here are a few pictures that might help illustrate what is wrong. I don't know what to do!

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/cliche/3457425980/" title="IMG_6321 by Katie@!, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3606/3457425980_b270f88b78.jpg" width="404" height="500" alt="IMG_6321" /></a>

You can see the bubbles attached to the transparent things in that one. If you really look, you can kind of also barely see the string things.

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/cliche/3456609943/" title="IMG_6323 by Katie@!, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3647/3456609943_d9913cf31e.jpg" width="500" height="395" alt="IMG_6323" /></a>

I just included this one in case anybody can notice something else wrong with him that I'm missing.

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/cliche/3457430000/" title="IMG_6326 by Katie@!, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3613/3457430000_97f5e803f1.jpg" width="500" height="369" alt="IMG_6326" /></a>

I circled where his little bulge is in this one. You can also again see the bubbles up by his head, but it's out of focus. Also, you can see the weird hairlike strands that are growing out of one of my plants. Are these normal? I tried to wipe them off, thinking they were algae, but they stayed on tight.

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/cliche/3456612917/" title="IMG_6330 by Katie@!, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3559/3456612917_2b0505033e.jpg" width="500" height="353" alt="IMG_6330" /></a>

This is the best one. I circled the bulge and the bubbles taht are attached to the stransparent string things. They're almost like cotton fibers or spiderweb strands...

Help! I've done some research and haven't really found much that it might be.

Also, click on any image to see a higher res version

Gah. HTML doesn't work. If you want to see the larger version, you'll have to pull the links out of those codes, otherwise, here are the photos again:






http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3559/...0505033e_b.jpg

[onekatietwo]

He seems worse today. I changed half the water yesterday and he became slightly more active but today he had more of the cottony things on him - no on his tail and fins, too. I did some more research and found that it is probably a bacterial infection.

I'm slowly turning the temperature of his tank down because I heard the bacteria explodes in warmer environments and it was reccomended to go to about 76f so the fish can fight it off. I couldn't find any medications besides something called 'bettafix' which seems like some kind of scam thing, but i gout it anyway. Has anybody ever had luck with this? It smells like Vics vapor rub.

They had some other powder thing that looked like it would actually work, but it was designed for much larger tanks so it comes with a lot of it and it was 20 dollars which, sadly, is too much for me right now. Especially when it might not work.

So if you have any other suggestions or have had good results after this type of infection, please let me know!

I hope it turns out alright.

[Twistersmom]

Not sure what you fish has, but I would go ahead and use the Bettafix and do 25% to 50% water changes daily and see if it clears up.
Sometimes clean water is the best medication. I would also run the filter 24/7.
Hope he gets better for you!

[onekatietwo]

Originally Posted by Twistersmom

Not sure what you fish has, but I would go ahead and use the Bettafix and do 25% to 50% water changes daily and see if it clears up.
Sometimes clean water is the best medication. I would also run the filter 24/7.
Hope he gets better for you!

Thanks. I don't keep it on becuase I'm worried that being tumbled about the aquarium all the time would just stress him out more.
I've definitely been doing water changes everyday. I might temporarily put him in my three gallon so water changes are easier and so I don't have to use as much medication.

I turned the temperature down because I read that the bacteria do well best in warm water. I know that it is usually suggested to turn the temperature UP if anything if the fish is sick, but I think this really worked. He's definitely improving, though he's still not 100%. But it's giving me hope. I think I'll make it through.

[onekatietwo]

Yay! I think tonight marks his full recovery. He'd been getting a bit better for the last couple days, but still wouldn't flare.
Today he's back to 100% and I haven't seen any of the disgusting bacteria cotton strand things on him.
And they were so awful! I hope I never do again!

[dramaqueen]

I'm glad to hear that he's doing better.

[Twistersmom]

Yea for fishy! Glad he is doing better!
I would not worry about the fact he does not flare, I realy dont see mine flare that often.

[onekatietwo]

Originally Posted by Twistersmom

Yea for fishy! Glad he is doing better!
I would not worry about the fact he does not flare, I realy dont see mine flare that often.

Yeah, normally I wouldn't have, but he was practically constantly flared before he got the weird cotton fiber looking things, so I was just waiting for him to return to him old self.

I'm so happy, though!

I didn't know I would get so attached to a fish!

[dramaqueen]

It's pretty easy to get attached to them. They are so pretty and full of personality. It will be interesting to see what kind of personalities my two new ones have. It's easy to get addicted to them too. lol