Please no, not my baby girl too!!!!

[BellasMomma]

I've had 2 bettas, female and male for months now. I bought another guy on the 2nd of jan. Had him in a 1 gallon for 2 days before I added him to my divided 10 gallon wit my Violet and Baltar. The night I added him to the 10 gallon started the downward spiral for him. The next morning he was covered in white cotton spots swimming on his side and couldn't come up for air. Long, sad story short, he died 3 days later (R.I.P. Spur) I did an Ick treatment before he died. And since he died in the 10gallon with my other 2 I drained and washed everything in the tank and the tank in very hot water.
Now my Violet has symptoms that differ from Spur's. Violet will not eat. My girl is a piggie. She would jump outta the water for the food. Doesn't even come see me. Not when I call her name like she used to. She has horribly clamped fins and just sits at the top of the water all day. She also has a clear/white stringy poop looking think hanging from her. After I did the cleaning of the tank after my Spur I added another Ick treatment and then added one again last night after a 25% water change as recommended on the package.
I noticed her acting strange when she would not eat 2 mornings ago and then later found her in her cave with her head popping out (she hasn't been in that thing since the first time she explored it) again very strange behavior for my girl.
please anyone who recognizes these symptoms please give me yer input on what may be wrong. She's still in the divided 10 gallon with Baltar who has had a decreased appetite. What do I do!?!

[Ajones108]

White cotton spots doesn't sound like Freshwater Ick, so I would stop treating for ick. Sometimes it could hurt the fish more by treating them with antibiotics since it does compromise their little immune systems. What I would recommend is keep up with your water changes, and instead of medication use AQ salt. Do you have any pictures?

[callistra]

The cotton sounds more fungal or even columnaris.. Do either of your other two have this?

Sounds like they at the least have internal parasites or bacterial infection. What medication are you using for Ich? What is the temperature of the tank? Normally with parasite infections you want to increase the temperature of the tank to 80 but if there's any chance there is columnaris running around in there I would be hesitant.. Second off, since the infection has gone internal you need to be feeding medicated food. You can see if you can find some. Jungle makes some. If you cannot you can make your own. What you will need is Seachem's metrodazinole and focus and possibly some garlic guard. You can use either the garlic guard liquid or some aquarium water. Put a small amount in a cup/bowl and add one measure each of the metro and focus and then let soak for 10-15min. Feed these pellets exclusively for a minimum of 2 weeks but you can do it as long as 4 weeks. I suggest doing it at least a week past when you think the infection is cleared up or you could risk a relapse (learned hard way myself). You can also safely bathe in the metro at the same time or you could get some prazipro and bathe in that and cover all your basis Metro and Prazi are very safe to use together and in fact there are a few popular meds that combine both but they don't come in a manner that you can mix up your own feed this way.

Hot water is not enough to kill all parasites. There are even parasites that can withstand boiling and baking. Pressure cooking (ornaments and rocks and anything porous you can't bleach) at 250 degrees a minimum of 10 minutes and 15 pounds of pressure or bleaching (tank and anything non porpous) are the only ways to really truly sterilize from parasite infection.

Sorry to disagree but I think you risk losing them at the aquarium salt method. Anytime you have an internal infection you need to be medicating.

ETA: on a second thought if it is bacterial in nature I would be treating with Kanaplex (Kanamyacin by Seachem) in the same manner of Metro which is antibiotic but really more effective for parasites. Since your other guy was gone in 3 days and you think he was fuzzy.. Hard to call with no photos.. If you can't find Kanamyacin then Maracyns in combo with some antibacterial food may help. So I can't guarantee which of the two they need, unfortunately but taking into account the very quick decline and cotton spots, if it were me I'd start with the antibiotics.

[Ajones108]

Its all good. :) I don't have much experience with internal parasites, which is why I asked for pictures. I do know that ich medication will not fix internal parasites though, and garlic is definitely the way to go. I dismissed the white stringy poop part because I did have a betta who's poop was always white and stringy. It was normal for him, haha. He was perfectly happy.

I was just giving an opinion of what I thought may help while waiting for someone more informed to come along. :)

[callistra]

He always had white poop? That's something new to me :)

I mispoke.. I don't know why I said pressure cook 10 minutes.. I think I was thinking of soaking time or bleaching time.. but pressure cook a minumum of 30 minutes.. I doubt anyone is going to do this is as pressure cookers are very expensive and therefore serializing in this way is highly impractical to almost all people but still wanted to correct that.. sorry.

[youlovegnats]

So, is the fish your treating in a tank with others?
If so, you need to stop this- remove the fish in question into a smaller tank (a 1 gal. will do nicely), and do a 100% water change on the 10 gal. You don't want to medicate your fish unnecessarily, as this can harm the fish and even weaken immune responses to actual true infection.

[Tikibirds]

Fuzzy white spots?

U may want to read this
http://www.americanaquariumproducts.com/Columnaris.html

Columnaris (often referred to in the past as "cotton wool disease" or "cotton mouth disease") is a warm water, gram negative strictly aerobic and nonhalophilic (meaning they do not live in saltwater conditions) bacterium often appears like a fungus (or more correctly; Saprolegnia) however it is not a fungus, although many treatments for fungus are effective for mild cases of Columnaris (Flexibacteria), which is why Erythromycin is a strange choice of treatment as it is rarely effective for either Fungus of Columnaris (yet is often suggested, which really makes me scratch my head as to why these sites suggest this treatment).

However do not confuse Columnaris with the spores of Saprolegnia the cotton wool ball with hair like growth structures seen on damaged fish, as without a microscope, Columnaris can look like Saprolegnia and is often treated as fungus with no result. The best way to tell with the naked eye is the hair like growth structures.