Treating Finrot, request advice

[Bettacrazy90]

Looks like hes a biter! But it also looks like its healing, Jose had a tailbiting episode and his fins are growing back, but he screwed them up pretty bad so they might not come back to original length or beauty. But it seems their healing. Check the entire aquarium, their might be some rough edges that are cutting his fins.

[Oldfishlady]

It looks like healing tissue to me too....I would do the daily water changes to keep him going that direction.......he is a lovely Betta by the way.....

[PeggyJ]

Is there an obvious way to tell the difference between fin rot and torn fins? Also, can torn fins become fin rot?

[Colibri]

An advice so your fish gets used to pellets:

I had a really big problem with my little girl Tina. She would NEVER eat ANYTHING that wasn't alive. She's a hunter, so the pellets were something she never touched. I tried a lot of things to make her used to them, but she was really reluctant. So, what I did was the next:
I give them live brine shrimp (my local fish store sells them) and they really love them. Brine shrimps are "filters", they get their nutriments through the water absorbing everything that's in it. So, what I did was take a brine shrimp (I always put the shrimps I'll be using in 1lt water so they loose the salt they have) and sprinkle crushed pellets on it so the flavor of the pellets is passed to the shrimp and the fish gets used to it. I worked with my Tina and she was the most terrible finicky/choosy fish I've had!

[Malvolti]

Thanks for the suggestion Colibri, I like the idea. I just need to find somewhere enarby that sells brine shrimp.

The tail is healing decently I see about a milimeter of new growth at least daily. He may have bitten it off in the stress of the move I suppose, it's hard to see their condition in those little cups and his water was dark blue so he kinda blended in. Although a self destructive nature would fit in perfectly with his name. I call him Howl after the character in the movie Howl's moving castle.

I can't really tell finrot on betta, I've only ever seen it on goldfish. I've never had a sick or bitey betta. To answer PeggyJ; from my reading look for black tips (usually fuzzy or crusty) or for the fin to be slowly disappearing.

The worst damage though is to his dorsal fin (the one on his back). It's badly shredded and i don't see any healing there yet, I'll of course stick to daily water changes for at least another week and see how he's progressing.

I don't mind if the fins don't fully regrow; I love betta for their personalities.

Thanks fish lady, he is very lovely. You can't see it in the photos too well but as he feels better he is bringing out more color. Some of his tail spines are turning red and the base of his tail is turning turquoise. I'll try to get better pictures when he's better and at his full beauty.

[Malvolti]

I thought I would commit threadomancy to provide an update on Howl. For starters he's finally eating pellets, the only kind he will eat is Aqueon Betta Food. I'm still doing Daily water changes and will probably keep doing them for at least another couple weeks.

Also his fins have regrown nicely, a bit uneven but it's better than nothing. His color has also come in beautifully. I'm attatching a few of his most recent pics below. He doesn't like the flash on my camera so he often runs away when he sees it come out. For reference he bit off his tail up to where it curves back up.

He also started building a bubble nest for a bottle of Prime conditioner he fell in love with, sadly it got destroyed in the water changes.