Why are Tango's fins curling?

[vaygirl]

You guys know he's in a HUGE tank, so space is not an issue. Every now and again, he blows or bites his tail and that seems to grow back fine. But his anal fin and his ventral fins are curling like crazy. At one point one ventral grew into itself in the shape of a C. I put a half dose of betta fix in his tank to help his tail heal and noticed that the ventral uncurled a bit just after and while it's still curling, it's not grown into itself anymore.

So I guess my question is, what causes curling besides water quality? I test my params every week, do weekly small water changes and vacuuming. His parameters are almost always 0,0,5 or 0,0,10. PH is 7.4 to 7.6.

[kelly528]

... how hard is your water?

[vaygirl]

Er... I don't know. I'll have to find out I guess. :D I have to go out today anyway. I'll pop into petco for a test for that. I assume I can find one there.

[vaygirl]

The only test I could get was a strip :/

But it says my water is 'hard' (100). And I spoke to the Petco employees that live in Edison and they said our water is hard. So where do I go from here?

[ledosholas]

i had to treat me Alexander for a week with bettafix before his fins uncurled. and now hes doing great. i bought him that way so i'm not sure why they were that way to begin with. goodluck

[vaygirl]

That's what they suggested at Petco. They also said that I should let the water sit out for a couple of days before water changes. I wanted to check with you guys first because, well, they're Petco and sometimes they have no idea what they're talking about.

[kelly528]

Okay first of all I have to say bettafix is a huge gimmick. The ONLY active ingredient is Melaluca (Tea-Tree) oil which is an antiseptic and that is about it. Basically Purell for fishies. Any 'uncurling' of finnage is most likely due to the removal of the betta from the cup of ammonia it has been stweing in at the pet store.

Hard water will cause a betta's fins to curl. There are many ways to soften your water, the most economical of which are

a) Run the water through a Brita pitcher before adding it to the tank
b) Bottled water
c) Indian Almond Leaf. The chemicals released by the leaves will bond to minerals in the water, making it softer.

I think you should see good results by filtering your water and using IAL.

[doggyhog]

That is great info Kelly!! I too have really hard water and I wanted some ideas to keep my CT and HMs fins in nice condition.

[kelly528]

The next step up is RO water but jeesh-- RO units are so expensive!!!

[vaygirl]

The Brita pitcher seems like the best idea for me. I do have a Pur filter on my faucet but I'm really pitiful about filters for the darn thing and it'll be good to have a backup. I'll get some IAL too. Thanks Kelly! You always have good answers. :)