My Omelette was bought Monday Dec. 26th. When I bought him he had shredded, blackened fin tips and I was told that it was fin rot. I used the Kosher/Aquarium salt treatment until that Saturday, the 31st. That's when I visited a pet store and decided on buying Betta Fix, a fin and scale repairer. I only did a 50% water change every day from the day I got him, and so there is probably a bit of salt still in the tank. I've been using 1/2 tsp. every night since Saturday for the 1 gallon tank. It's unfiltered, unheated, with a sprig of Egeria Densa. I noticed that his pelvic fins have white opaque tips, and it seems like they've been appearing since I used Bettafix. Is this new growth or rotted fins?
Also, Omelette is doing great. He finally started eating his 2 pellets a day without spitting them out and re-nomming them!
I forgot to mention earlier, you should get a heater if the water does not stay around 78 degrees F. A hydor 7.5 W is good for that size tank. White opaque fins are probably new growth, definitly not fin rot as far as I know. I hope this helps. :)
I forgot to mention earlier, you should get a heater if the water does not stay around 78 degrees F. A hydor 7.5 W is good for that size tank. White opaque fins are probably new growth, definitly not fin rot as far as I know. I hope this helps. :)
Thank you. I'm actually scanning eBay for a heater, because the need for it is not too desperate, but I should be ordering one within 2 weeks. I'll look for a hydor 7.5 w and take your advite not to use bettafix! But how does it hurt the fish??
In regards to your question about the medicine hurting bettas, all the medications that end in 'fix (betta, mela, and pima) contain tea tree oil. While helpful to humans, it can damage a bettas labyrinth organ. This is how they breath air from the surface. IF this organ is damaged badly enough a betta cannot get oxygen, and they can suffocate.
You should not put off buying the heater, depending on the average temperature of the tank. A hydor 7.5 W is about $8 at our Petco. We live in South Dakota, and we decided to put off buying a heater for a few weeks for one of our bettas, the water temperature of the tank rarely dropped below 70 degrees, but the betta still developed a bacterial or parasitic infection. Following the advice of experts on this forum, we treated with both Maracyn I and II, but Alpha still died. I think that unless the temperature of the tank stays above 75 degrees F almost all the time, you should get the heater as soon as possible. We use a Hydor 7.5 W in our 1 gal tank, and it stays above 77 all the time. In the afternoon it gets above 83 regularly so you should monitor the temp and unplug the heater when it gets to 82 degrees, plugging it back in when it reaches 80 degrees. Twice we forgot to check the temp, and it got to 88 degrees! Thats why you have to monitor the temp. The heater if very reliable, and there is only one other that I know of for that size tank. The other one is very bad according to the reviews I have read. If the tank gets to cool at night, you can wrap a towel around it, that works very well and we use it for our 2.5 gal tank. Hope this helps.
Silverfang is right. Back when I was uneducated and frankly, stupid, about bettas I used the "fixes" on my sick PetCo bettas (PetCo was the only place close and I was too naive then to explore the internet breeders) they all died within a week or so. Wether this was due to PetCo's mistreatment of fish or the "fixes" remains unknown. But I don't trust them.
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