Sick Betta

[Toast]

Hi everyone!

I have a betta fish named Panini, and I recently bought my parents a betta named Buddy.

Buddy is a very excited fish! Whenever he sees someone near the tank or when he hears our voices, he jumps up and swims around and opens his mouth at us and "dances" for us.

Lately Buddy has been much worse. He lays on the bottom and doesn't move his back tail and his bottom fin very much: I think they're paralyzed or something. He wakes up only to get air and then goes back to the bottom to sleep. I know for sure that he's sick but I'm not sure what's wrong with him! He's now also getting black stuff in between his scales and is turning a little transparent.

I'm worried that if I misdiagnose him and give him some medicated stuff in his water that it'll make him worse! But at the same time I really want to take care of him, so I'm changing his water more often than not and I've moved him to a smaller bowl (1 gal.) with the hopes that he'll be a little more energetic.

I want to get him medicine but I'm worried that it might hurt him more than help him. Any ideas on what I should do?

[Falina]

Could you psost your water parameters? Are you using a filter? What temperature is the tank?

Were there any other fish in the first tank. If there were you are most likely right to isolate him but if he was on his own I think you would have been best to leave him in the bigger tank.

If you could answer these few questions it would help us to be able to diagnose the problem better. And if you have any photos of the discolouration it would be hellpful as well, though I know that this is not always possible.