Hello! I posted awhile back wondering what was wrong with my fish's tail. Here's the link to my previous post, where you can see pictures of what his tail was like.
Well, this past month or so its been getting really bad. He seems to be loosing his dorsal fin (radially, not from tip to base. Take a look at picture one to see what I mean). He also got what looked to be little blisters under his skin (they looked like little ball bearings, maybe 3mm in diameter) I saw another picture of a betta that had almost the exact same thing, and someone said they were tumors. I thought that was what they were. However, they started expanding, and getting a bit 'ichy' looking, meaning they didn't quite look healthy. Then, these 'tumors' or whatever they were turned white and expanded into each other so that there is only one white blotch. And now his caudal fin is actually starting to tear away from his body where the white part is.
The weird thing is, besides the gaping tear in his fin, he acts perfectly normal. He swims around, flares at his reflection, and eats like a pig. Although, that is another thing I should mention. He eats and eats and eats like a typical betta, but he still seems pretty skinny. I feed him mostly pellets, but with flakes and the occasional dried bloodworm/flightless fruit fly. He's probably eating 8 plus pellets a day, and is still pretty skinny.
But anyway, back to what I was saying. His other fins are perfectly fine. He acts like he's quite happy and it doesn't seem like he's in discomfort. Which is weird, because his tail looks horrendous.
I'm just about ready to tear my hair out in clumps. I treated the tank with melafix for two weeks, and saw no changes. Then I treated the tank with Tetra "Lifeguard:All in one treatment" (active ingredients1-chloro-2,2,5,5-tetramethyl-4-imidazolidinone). I've been doing daily 50% water changes for three weeks. Nothing has helped at all. I tried to find some more powerful antibiotics, but the only thing I've been able to find is melafix, the lifegaurd that I used, and something called "Maracyn-oxy" by Mardel.
<---that is me, not at all happy with the lack of good medications.
Here are his tank parameters.
~He's in a 5.5 gallon tank.
~The decorations are all betta safe: I've kept bettas before in this tank without tail rips
~The temperature is 80*F.
~He has a filter
~He is the only fish in the tank
~There are two live java ferns
Here are the pictures.
Picture 1: A drawing a made to illustrate his tail loss. The dark color are the fins he has, the pale coloring are the fins he has lost. When he flares, this is what he looks like:
http://img211.imageshack.us/img211/2479/img036o.jpg
Picture 2: A real picture of his tail.
https://mail.google.com/a/siu.edu/?u...f_g5lwbmbb0&zw
Picture 3 : very similar to picture 2, but a bit closer up.
https://mail.google.com/a/siu.edu/?u...f_g5lwcj2j1&zw
Any help is welcome. He fin is actually tearing away from his body, and I don't know what to do. He doesn't seem to be in discomfort, but if could just be that he's good at hiding it. It looks really painful, and I just want to help him
. (and that icon is not an exaggeration. I am actually crying a little right now.)
So, in closing (to make this post even longer, if that's possible) please give any advise. I don't care if its just a hunch, its better than what I've got now. I better close this post before I write a novel...Fin.
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Francis' tail is getting very bad, and I don't know what else to do.
i know a couple people on here have had some pretty tough battles with fin rot. the only thing i really can think of is that he has some sort of internal parasite if he isn't gaining weight. would you be able to get him a smaller hospital tank? that way it's a lot easier to clean daily than a 5.5 gallon. you can get a 2.5 gallon kritter keeper for relatively cheap, i got mind for $9.99. and if you're able to do that, instead of doing daily 50% changes, you can try daily 100% changes.
