Female Acting Oddly

[TheKingsFish]

Housing
What size is your tank? 10 gallons
What temperature is your tank? About 80 Fahrenheit
Does your tank have a filter? Yes: carbon filter and an "ammonia pillow"
Does your tank have an air stone or other type of aeration? No.
Is your tank heated? Yes.
What tank mates does your betta fish live with? 5 other females, fresh plants

Food
What type of food do you feed your betta fish? Hikari Bio-Gold Pellets, Frozen blood worms, freeze dried blood worms
How often do you feed your betta fish? twice a day

Maintenance
How often do you perform a water change? 2-3 times weekly
What percentage of the water do you change when you perform a water change? 20-50%
What type of additives do you add to the water when you perform a water change? Tap water conditioner, waste control

Water Parameters:
Have you tested your water? If so, what are the following parameters?

Ammonia: Last test 1.0
Nitrite: 1.2
Nitrate: 3.1 (we have several live plants...no plastic)
pH: 7.0
Hardness: unknown
Alkalinity: unknown

Symptoms and Treatment
How has your betta fish's appearance changed? loss of colour
How has your betta fish's behavior changed? clamped tail fin, less activity, generally found floating near the surface between the heater and the glass, not eating. Was behaving normally a few hours earlier.
When did you start noticing the symptoms? This morning
Have you started treating your fish? If so, how? Not yet. Will be putting her in quarantine when I get home.
Does your fish have any history of being ill? Unknown. Not since I got her.
How old is your fish (approximately)? Unknown. Purchased 2 weeks ago.

One of our other females (Hero) was quarantined and treated for a columnaris infection last week (hasn't been released yet), but there doesn't seem to be anything outwardly wrong with Cordelia (the female in question). Her sisters will occasionally sit with her but otherwise seem to be acting normally.

Le Fraternite:

Hamlet (Red Veiltail male w/ blue sheen)
Ariel (Blue-green Twintail w/ hints of black and red)

La Sororite:

Ophelia (Cambodia female with blue rays and sheen, red fins, tail unknown)
Hero (wild type female, red fins, turquoise rays and a few scales)
Cordelia (wild type female with red fins, green rays and a few scales)
Viola (wild type female with red fins, gold-coloured body, blue rays)
Silvia (wild type, red fins, turquoise rays, silver/gold body)
Katharina (Cambodia female with red marbling, red fins, blue rays and sheen, blue eyes)

[Oldfishlady]

Welcome to the forum and sorry your Betta is not well....good that you plan to QT....

Have you tested your source water for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate-if not-I would to see if that is your source-the ammonia pillow may be part of the cause but not sure by changing ammonia to ammonium-I have never used them....

What kind of testing products are you using?

The ammonia and nitrite levels are troubling....once you check your source water levels and rule that out as a cause I would start making water changes to get those levels under control for the main tank

Why are you using the ammonia pillow? and what is the waste control additive?

What kind and how many live plants are in the tank

How long has the tank been running and when was the last time you changed the filter media and vacuumed the substrate....if you can without disruption of plant roots that is....how long have you had the live plants in the tank and are you using any plant ferts? if so what kind, how much, last does?

Have you added any medications to this tank, if so, what, how much and when?

All the other fish are acting fine...just one female that is sick-correct?.....my first thought was nitrite poisoning but of the other fish are fine.......once you Qt her I would start a daily 100% water change with aquarium salt 1tsp/gal and increase to 3tsp/gal within 24h and see if this won't perk her up and go from that point......you may want to lower your water temp in the 76-78F range to be safe since you had columnaris

[TheKingsFish]

1. Have you tested your source water for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate...?

The answer is no we haven't. We've had Hamlet since October with no problems, so these issues we've been having with the girls are a bit of a surprise. We had some awful clouding problems the first few days after we set the tank up and it wouldn't go away with daily water changes. Nitrogen based compounds were through the roof even with the plants so the pet shop where we got the girls recommended the pillow (I think they're really called "Green Filters" or something like that) to help clear them out.

2. What kind of testing products are you using?

pH was tested with a Nutrafin wide range test kit using a combination of Bromothymol Blue and Methyl Orange (it and everything that came with the tank the girls are in was second hand, but thoroughly sterilized before use).

Everything else is entirely uncertain: all other tests were done at the pet shop. Ammonia was tested with a yellowish looking dye and the other 2 looked like they were tested with either methyl red or phenolpthalien (they turned varying shades of fuchsia according to the colour charts...will consult text books to find out which react with those compounds)

Had another test done after I got out of class today:

Ammonia levels = 0 range. According to their records the last test had the ammonia range at 0.1 three days prior.

Current Nitrite levels are almost non-existent and their records show that they were fairly low at last test. The fact that they were extremely high within days of moving the girls into the main tank is the reason why we've been watching everything so carefully and also why we got the pillow as per the staff's advice.

3. What kind and how many live plants are in the tank?

There is a rust coloured member of the Anubias family, plus 5 Java Ferns and counting. The larger one in the girls' tank is new, but most of them are from Hamlet's jar, since he has very very happy Java ferns that need to be split off every other week.

4. How long has the tank been running?

Approximately 3 weeks, maybe 4. Since Dec. 22. Ophelia was by herself for week one with no problems and the tank was only half full with about half the plants that are in there now. We brought Corde, Vi, Sil, and Hero home at week 2 and filled the tank all the way, and the tank was extremely cloudy by day 3. Last Monday we noticed that Hero's tail looked like something out of a B rated mummy movie so we quarantined her, but she is now doing much better and will be re-introduced to the sorority with tonight's water change. A few days ago we picked up Kate, who has yet to move into the tank since she had some fin damage from transport to the pet shop.

5. when was the last time you changed the filter media? Last Wednesday.

6. vacuumed the substrate? Sunday, with the last 50% water change.

7. how long have you had the live plants in the tank? Since day 1.

8. are you using any plant ferts? No.

9. Have you added any medications to this tank? No. We quarantined Hero before we started treating her. A doctor wouldn't dose people with antibiotics if they weren't actually sick, so it didn't make sense to do that with healthy fish.

10. just one female that is sick-correct? Correct. Happy to say that Hero has shaken off the dastardly colony with the help of aquarium salt, tetracycline, and a very tiny amount of hydrogen peroxide. She will be re-introduced with tonight's cleaning.

Additional info: Filter media = "green filter" pillow and the aquarium version of a carbon furnace filter.

Corde is royally PO'd about being quarantined. I haven't added the aquarium salt yet, but she seems to be perking up and has eaten a couple pellets. Still hasn't recovered her vertical banding (stress stripes still present), but her fins are back to their normal colour. Will be putting her in a proper quarantine tank once they are vacated (she is currently in a canning jar).

I still don't understand why she was practically cuddling the heater while she was in the main tank.

I've been extremely curious about their behaviour and how they assert dominance within the sorority, so I've been keeping a data journal. I think for future reference I might include the dates and amounts of water changes and test results to help in the event of a future crisis.

[TheKingsFish]

have noticed since quarantine that Cordelia is moving her jaws a great deal and constantly flexing her gills. Reduced her water content by half before adding the aquarium salt suggested by OFL (1/8 tsp per 1/2 qt correct?). As she was quarantined in a 1qt canning jar at the time of this observation it doesn't seem wise to move her into a larger vessel. Current temperature of her environment is 75 degrees Fahrenheit, living in water that has been left to sit with conditioner for 2 days prior. May have had these problems before quarantine.

[Oldfishlady]

Sounds like the tank was going through the nitrogen cycle and you had some bacterial blooms-
On the main tank start making 50% daily water only changes with one substrate vacuuming a week over the next 10 days then twice weekly 50%-one water only and one vacuum the substrate for 2 weeks then weekly 50% with vacuum thereafter (since all plants are the type that you tie/attach to objects you should be able to vacuum the substrate without problems in all area you can reach without moving anything)

Don't change the filter media-if the water flow slows give it a swish/rinse in old tank water to get the big pieces of gunk off-also give the filter media a rinse/swish in old tank water a couple of times a month.
Personally I would toss the ammonia pillow

Java fern and anubias-although a great plants-due to the slow growth by nature-they don't use up as much ammonia and nitrate as we would like...if you can get some hornwort to float for a couple of weeks that would be helpful

The Betta in QT-sometimes they will move their jaws like that due to external parasites thats in the gill plates-also scar tissues can cause this behavior as well-keep up with the treatment I gave you in the earlier post

When a fish is stressed and ill they look for places to hide and often the heater is a great place for them to feel safe-its just an object to them to hide behind.

[TheKingsFish]

Makes sense. We started doing constant water changes when we noticed the cloud problem. After about a week it went away, then we started having trouble with the girls.

Hero is back in the sorority tank and re-asserting her position as the alpha female now that the infection is gone.

As for Cordelia, I have been following your instructions. She isn't flexing her jaws and gills anymore, but she isn't moving either. I do understand that these things take time, but my room mate and I are worried. She has eaten a pellet today at least, so there is progress on that front. Still not colouring up tho.

Hamlet, our larger male (see StarvingPoet's avatar) is in a similar slump (water changed about 48 hours ago and tank completely scrubbed down. He's had mood swings before, so I'm not worried.

[TheKingsFish]

Cordelia didn't make it. We lost her between 1800-1930 yesterday. Barely made it past the first water change.

Hamlet's behaviour is also extremely odd: he regains his former vigor when he's in the dark, but very lethargic when the lights are on. Roughly 24 hours post water-change he developed a cowl similar to the infection on Hero that we are now treating him for in one of our Q tanks because we don't know how the antibiotic will affect his plants. Any ideas?

[Oldfishlady]

Sorry for your loss....

What are the male symptoms and can you post pic and give more history on setup, husbandry etc.....

Treatments are best completed in QT so not up upset the main aquarium balance, especially with live plants.

[TheKingsFish]

Hamlet is thriving and building nests in the Q jar :D Will keep him there for a while longer for another round of antibios (after a break from them of course!). He should be ready to go back home in a few days.