New fish, patchy bit of color loss?

[elijahfeathers]

So today my friend gave me a 10 gallon tank under the condition that I help her move some fish she wanted to keep, clean it out, ect. She was downsizing, and since there's already a betta in her main tank, I get a new little friend with my 10 gallon.

She was keeping him with a pair mollies, a rubber lip pleco, two kissing fish, and some seethrough things she said were catfish? They were very long and you could see the entire skeletion, the rest was see-through.

Anyway, she has a filter and heater for the tank, and she was feeding algae pellets, tropical fish flakes and freezedried brineshrimp cubes to the fish-- and there was enough food in there that the water was a bit cloudy. There were a couple live plants-- she's actually given me some to take home.

The betta I'm taking has a light splotch on a large portion of one side of him. It looks very white compaired to the rest of his scalings-- much more contrast than shows in the photos. She claims that he was light like that all around wen she first got him, and I was just wondering if it means anything.

That's the side, I'm sure you can see the bit of fading. Anyway, I guess now I'm going to be dividing my new filtered, heated 10 gallon between him and my other two bettas-- and I was wonders what steps I ought to take to make sure I don't like.... give my other two any diseases. This is sort of my first time working with fish, and I went from one gift betta to two, and now this third guy or he'd be flushed. :C I just want to make sure this isn't anything serious, and that I won't hurt my other fish by having them share water.

Thanks in advance for any advice-- so far since joining I've got a lot of good input. C:


Edit;

This is the other side of him, for anyone who's curious. He's stuck in a jar with plants for a couple hours until he gets back to my house. :C

[JessG]

Wow, he's pretty. I don't know if it is disease, but my fish Alvin also has a patch that is lighter than the rest of his body on the side, in about that spot.

It seems to be his normal coloration.

[elijahfeathers]

In real life he looks very dark purple and the discoloration is very, very light purple/red.

[Oldfishlady]

To be safe I would recommend that you keep him QT for at least 3 weeks-it may just be a color fade or change-it could be age related too-I would make frequent water changes while in QT, provide good nutrition and watch him...better safe than sorry...it sounded like your friend may not have taken good care of him and he needs time to build his immunity back up-exposing him to your fish could cause problems just as him exposed to them....he is a lovely Betta by the way.....

[fleetfish]

He looks perfectly healthy to me :)

[elijahfeathers]

Okay so it looks like a lot of her other fish that are left have ick too-- he doesn't seem to have anything on him, but I think she'd scooped some of the plants out from the tank with the fish with it. :/ Ill watch him close, not putitng him with the other fish yet.

However, she does have her betta, and a couple other fish in a 10 gallon tank, and more than one appears to have ick. What can she do to treat this tank? And what can I do to uh... make sure that I don't get anything from the tank and filter that she gave to me? There are no fish in it yet, I haven't even put new water in it yet.

[Oldfishlady]

I would leave the tank dry for a couple of days-for your Betta-keep him QT and make the daily water changes and feed well.

You have to be really careful dealing with fish and tanks that have been neglected-the sudden changes stress the already immune compromised fish and you can start to see other pathogen/parasite that would not affect a healthy fish.
With ich-raising the temp can help speed their life cycle so that you can manually remove and kill them, however, in an immune compromised fish the high temp can cause them to contract other pathogens like columnaris and this can be deadly especially with immune compromised fish...so take caution when raising the temp if at all..lots of water changes are needed and gravel vacuuming to remove the parasite as they fall from the fish and to reduce the bacteria in the tank-adding 1tsp/gal of aquarium salt can help as well-however, some plants can be salt sensitive as well as some fish (check and make sure the fish other than the betta are salt tolerant before use)-small percent water changes to start and increase daily-keeping the water temp in the 76-77F range-often fish that have been neglected long term do not survive large water changes-your friend may need to look into an OTC ich medication that is safe for all the fish-I don't use OTC products so I can't recommend anything.....

[elijahfeathers]

Alright, I'll pass on the information about treating the tank to my friend.

As mt my fish, I can keep him seperate from the other two for a while, but he won't have heating. This tank that I'll be splitting has a heated and I' gonna do a divided setup so I can keep all my bettas warm. Is it alright to keep him in room temp water? I've been keeping the fish at 72-74ish even though it's chilly with a space heater in my room.

[Oldfishlady]

It really is better for them to keep the water temp at the very least 76F-if you have a small cup to put him in you can float it in the heated tank....

[elijahfeathers]

Well that's why I'm excited about the 10 gallon with the heater. :P

But yes, I've still got the plastic cups form the stores my betta came in, so I could float the new one in the warm water in that. I might even see if I can't find a way to get something bigger floating in there for him to keep him warm too...