ammonia poisoning?

[margotandfishy]

Housing
What size is your tank? divided 10gal
What temperature is your tank? 80ish
Does your tank have a filter? yes
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? divided with betta on the other side, otherwise none

Food
What type of food do you feed your betta fish? omega goldfish pellets
How often do you feed your betta fish? 2-3 a day, skip a day every once and awhile

Maintenance
How often do you perform a water change? slowly going from every week to every 2 weeks
What percentage of the water do you change when you perform a water change? 25% - 50%
What type of additives do you add to the water when you perform a water change? only water conditioner

Water Parameters:
Have you tested your water? If so, what are the following parameters?
no i haven't, planning on getting a test kit tonight but i don't know if i can get one with Nitrate Nitrite and Ammonia so maybe just ammonia
Ammonia:
Nitrite:
Nitrate:
pH:
Hardness:
Alkalinity:

Symptoms and Treatment
How has your betta fish's appearance changed? edges of fins are ragged and theres a hole or two in the fins themselves
How has your betta fish's behavior changed? swimming against the wall, very spazzy for lack of a better word
When did you start noticing the symptoms? yesterday
Have you started treating your fish? If so, how? no
Does your fish have any history of being ill? no
How old is your fish (approximately)? about 4 months

I've looked around and i think its ammonia poisoning but i'm not sure what that exactly looks like. the edges of his fins have always gone from blue to clear. i couldn't get a good picture so i will try again later but i hope this is enough to start trying to help me.

[margotandfishy]

so i just read a different site's symptoms of ammonia poisoning and it doesn't sound like whats going on in my tank at all so you can disregard that for now i guess

[margotandfishy]

here are pictures... first one is of what his tank looks like, last three are the only decent pictures i could get of what his fins look like. he's also missing a scale on his head

[Silverfang]

Some of the ends kinda look like he might have been biting his fins. It's far too common, and a very annoying problem. Are the ends blackened at all? are they feathery?

[margotandfishy]

yeah thats a pretty good description of them. but bite a hole in his fin? i could understand the ends but not the middle. is there anything i can do about that if it is the problem?

[Silverfang]

Whether you're dealing with fin biting or tail rot, clean water is the best treatment. You might want to quarantine him in a small container and do daily water changes.

[Twilight Storm]

You probably want to get your Betta on a different food too. I am NOT an expert but he could be spazzy because he is lacking something in his diet? Bettas are carnivores and need high protein diets. Aqueon Betta food is kind of inexpensive and seems to be widely available in my area at least. A lot of members use new life spectrum food too. Whatever you choose, look for fish meal to be the first ingredient on the package ingredients.

If wheat or something plant based is the first ingredient on the food try to steer clear of it.

The goldfish food you are feeding right now is most likely formulated wrong for your Betta, but I am not familiar with goldfish or their care so I could be wrong as well. (Goldfish with BIG TEETH! **"waggles fingers in front of her face like Monty Python bunny"**) <--- sorry just picturing a carnivorous goldfish. :)

If I repeated anything you already knew, sorry, just trying to help, and here is a nice guide I found on fish disease from a different website. It seems to describe things a little better for me at least then other ones I have found up till recently.
http://www.malawicichlidhomepage.com...ase_intro.html

Hope your little guy feels better soon though!

Best wishes

[DarkMoon17]

Storm does have a point, you should get them onto betta food. A large percentage of a goldfish's diet is herbivorous so goldfish food would be skewed towards that. Since bettas are carnivorous, goldfish food will not benefit them long term.

Are the tips black? If they are black then you are dealing with fin rot. If they are not, then your boy is probably a fin nipper. Either way, isolate him in a QT container (float it in the main tank to keep it warm) and do daily 100% water changes and add 1st salt/gallon. Continuer the salt treatment until you see regrowth, but don't do it for more than 10 days. I would do the 100% water changes until you see improvement, maybe a few days longer than you do the salt treatment. Then you will need to do increased water changes in the 10 gallon to make sure it heals back well.

[margotandfishy]

The food thing makes sense but my other fish is perfectly fine. I'll change it anyways, just in case Winston is just delicate. The best container I have is the one I got him in, or would a glad container work well for that? The tips of his fins are a little black.

[DarkMoon17]

Ok, you are probably dealing with fin rot then. The glad container should work as long as it is deep enough. If you use the container he came in I would do 100% water changes twice per day. Depending on the size of the glad container you should be able to get away with 100% once per day. Add the salt at 1tsp/gal. If you do not see improvement (or if it gets worse) in 3 or so days then up the dose to 2tsp/gal.

The food probably isn't the cause of the problem but it might explain why it got so bad so quickly. Bettas need lots of protein in order to maintain a healthy immune system and to regrow tissues.