What's wrong with his back & scales?

[fishfin]

I've only had Fin for very short time.

I came home from work to find this strange issue with his scales along his back. He is still eating and swimming around like he usually does, so at this point I don't think it is worrying him.

Here is a photo taken over the weekend where you can see that his back was fine.



And now tonight.... Can you see those scales look strange? They are almost brown in colour.









From the searching around I have done on illnesses etc, I have not been able to find out what this is.

[metalbetta]

I'm no expert by any means but it looks like Columnaris to me. (correct me if I'm wrong.)

Here's an article that could help you with your diagnosis:

http://www.americanaquariumproducts.com/Columnaris.html

As I said I'm not saying this is most definitely what it is, but it's an idea.

[Adastra]

Since the pictures are rather small and unclear, there are a few possibilities.

It's possible he swam under something and simply scraped his scales. If the area looks clean and there's no huge change in texture, I would simply increase the water changes and make sure the scrape does not get infected by keeping the water pristinely clean. You should obviously search for whatever sharp object he swam under that caused the injury.

If the fish is acting lethargic and the wound becomes fuzzy or crusty, it is likely infected and will need to be treated with a broad spectrum antibiotic.

If this is not a scrape or wound of any kind, simply a change in coloration without a disruption of the scales or anything like that, consider that your fish may simply be a marble betta. To learn more about marble bettas please read this article: http://bettysplendens.com/articles/p...articleid=1114

[fishfin]

Thanks for the replies. Looking closer at his back, I believe he has scraped his back on a plastic plant! I could kick myself for not removing them! I have now taken them out and will will watch him closely, along with lots of water changes.

He was bright and happy this morning.

[Romad]

My first thought was that it looked scraped too. I don't see any fuzz so that's probably a good sign.

Good luck and hope it's nothing serious.

[Alienbetta1]

Good luck I hope he gets better.