hannibal has shredded his fins!!!

[Falina]

i noticed today that my betta, hannibal lecter, has got a shredded fin. it def doesnt look like finrot.

water params: amonia 0, nitrite 0, nitrate 10mg/l, ph 6.5

so the water quality is not to blame

tank is 10g, and only companions are 7 cories and some snails (dont know what type) so i dont think hes been attatcked. the tank has live plants, not plastic so he hasnt ripped them on plants.

i have treated with melafix which i think is the best course of action.

anyone ideas how he could have injured himself like that?

[Lupin]

What type of filter do you use?:)

[Falina]

its an undergravel filter that came with the tank. it has a wee waterfall type thing where the water falls back into the tank after it has been filtered through the gravel.

[Falina]

i dont think he could have done it on the filter, is that what you were thinking? the suction is undergrvel so his wee fin couldnt have got sucked in.

thanks

[Falina]

It's been almost a fortnight now and he's getting no better. I used melafix and continued for 7 days like it said on the bottle but there's been no improvement at all and tbh it actually looks a bit worse!

I'm still 100% convinced it's not finrot - it just doesn't look like it, and nobody else has it in the tank either.

What should I do? Should I start another course of melafix and hope it works better this time? Or does anyone have any other ideas?

Thanks.

[willow]

hi
i don't know anything about these little guys,
however i had a guppy with torn fins,and to be honest
it took more than a week before i noticed an improvement.
more like a month.

[Falina]

Originally Posted by Lainey

hi
i don't know anything about these little guys,
however i had a guppy with torn fins,and to be honest
it took more than a week before i noticed an improvement.
more like a month.

Thanks.

The lack of improvement is bugging me, more so it's the fact that it's getting worse. I would have thoguht that even if it didn't get any better for a while, it would at least stop getting worse.

I'll keep an eye on him. Like I said I really don't think it's finrot however if it continues to worsen, would it do any harm to treat for finrot anyway? Just in case?

[willow]

hi
just as a little thing as well....
you probably know already but
don't forget to keep up with your water changes,
as you don't want anything else to creep in.
:)

[Falina]

Thanks again, but yes I do keep it up! If there's one thing in life I do keep up it's looking after my fishes, certainly more so than I look after things like tidying up

I can't help thinking that they look out of their tank at the rest of the house and think "God - I'm glad I'm in here and not out there!"

[tophat665]

OK, bettas are sensitive to the active ingredient in Melafix. You can kill a betta with full strength doses, so stop and count yourself lucky. Pop some carbon in your filter and do a 50% water change.

All is not lost, however:

There is a product called Bettafix that is actually Pimafix mixed at 20% strength. This is safe for bettas. Which means that using 1 ml/10 gallons of melafix is also safe for bettas.

That being the case, once you've baselined the water to get rid of the harmful concentration, take out the carbon and continue the melafix regimen with 1 ml in 10 gallons rather than the 5 the bottle recommends. If you want to use Pimafix as well, use the same amount.

See if that helps.