[kkrepps920]

Housing
What size is your tank? 10 gallons
What temperature is your tank? 78 degrees F
Does your tank have a filter? Yes, but it's currently off
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? Ramshorn snails, but I took them out to treat my betta

Food
What type of food do you feed your betta fish? Tetrabetta pellets, Tetrabetta flakes, freeze dried blood worms, gammarus
How often do you feed your betta fish? Twice a day

Maintenance
How often do you perform a water change? Once a week
What percentage of the water do you change when you perform a water change? 30%
What type of additives do you add to the water when you perform a water change? Betta safe water conditioner

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

Ammonia:
Nitrite: Stress
Nitrate: Safe
pH: Alkaline
Hardness:Hard
Alkalinity: Ideal

Symptoms and Treatment
How has your betta fish's appearance changed? His fins seem a bit shredded, he is pale, he is extremely skinny despite eating. He has a bit of a curve on his spine, but it's been there since I've had him.
How has your betta fish's behavior changed? He went from being active to just sitting at the top of his tank
When did you start noticing the symptoms? About a month ago. I thought it was just stress from moving, but the symptoms haven't gone away
Have you started treating your fish? If so, how? I started giving him Lifeguard All-in-One tablets. I'm giving him the last dose today. He is a tad bit more active since I've given him the medication, but not a lot.
Does your fish have any history of being ill? He has always seemed kind of "sickly". I have 3 other bettas and he has never been as colorful or as active as them.
How old is your fish (approximately)? I got him about 9 months ago and he was fully grown, probably no more than one and a half

He seems to be having a hard time eating, and he sin't eating as much as normal, but he is eating some. He looks like he hasn't eaten in weeks. He is just wasting away. His spine kind of curves. He sits at the top of his tank all day doing nothing. In the past day or two, he has flared a little bit and moved around a bit more. He has always eaten his poop so I can't look at it to see if it looks healthy. I know his water parameters aren't ideal. I've been trying to adjust them, but they wont budge. And when they do, they return to how they were in a day or two. And the water parameters in my other three tanks are the same and those bettas seem to be doing fine. (If you can tell me how to fix my water parameters, please do! I've tried tablets drops that are meant to help and I've done water changes.)

I thought he was just stressed from being moved from my dorm to home, but he hasn't gotten any better. Maybe the stress is what made him susceptible to an illness. I also thought he might just be bored or depressed so I showed him a mirror and he flared a little at his reflection, but then hid. He normally would flare and go nuts at his reflection.

I have melafix and pimafix but he isn't really showing the symptoms that those medications treat. He doesn't have any sores or lesions, growths, or anything like that. He does have a bit of redness in certain areas and I can't tell if it's normal. I also have aquarium salt.

 

[Veloran]

Hi can you post a picture of him?
Is there a reason the filter is off? Unless there's danger to him from the filter, leaving it on could only help him. Without having exact numbers, it also appears that your filter is just cycling or experiencing a mini cycle so upping his water changes for the moment could help out.
Have you treated him for internal parasites with something like medicated food? Lifeguard only treats external issues if I'm not mistaken.
Is all of his food dried/freeze dried or did he have any frozen/live food?

For now, do a water change and see if you can get your water tested at the pet store, ask them for numbers, not just a yes/no. Don't try to fix the water parameters (outside of ammonia, nitrite, nitrate), he will adapt, just condition his new water. See if you can get your hands on some Epsom salt and see if anywhere near you sells Jungle's parasite pellets and Jungle's Parasite Clear or API General cure.

We can talk about his food later.

Edit: Fish TB is extremely rare and there's a better chance that he's just got internal parasites so we'll tackle it from that angle for now.

 

[kkrepps920]

I can't get a good photo of him, every time I try he hides. His filter is off because I could tell he was having a hard time swimming with the current. I divert the water using a water bottle when the filter is on, but even that seems to be too much for him right now. Also, the medicine I'm treating him with said to keep the filter off during treatment.

I did suspect internal parasites because his extreme weight loss. He has never had live or frozen food before, so I'm not sure how he could have gotten them. Everything in his tank I bought brand new and I use separate nets and cups when doing water changes so he couldn't have gotten them from another fish of mine. I went to the pet store intending to buy API general cure, but they didn't have it. Pretty much all of the medicine they have is for bacterial and fungal infections. I guess I'll have to go order something online for internal parasites.

 

[SharkyTheBetta]

I'm sorry to hear that your fish is ill. I'm also very interested in this topic because one of my bettas seems to have the same problems. Is your fish having difficulties swimming? Hopefully we will get some useful advice here.

 

[lilnaugrim]

You can cup the fish in a plastic or see-through cup to take pictures of him. That will help us.

Just because you don't feed frozen or live foods, doesn't mean he can't get parasites. Parasites and bacteria exist through our water system at all times, the first time he gets stressed; that's when they attack. It doesn't necessarily have to be something new either.

I see you're shopping at wal-mart? Yeah, think of it this way: any brand that you can get at a supermarket like Wal-Mart, it's likely no good. Same goes for cat and dog foods; it's all cheap crap. Tetra and TopFin are the worst offenders.

ProTip: look at the first ingredients, animal foods are not required to list by weight like human food does, but some of the better companies still do it out of courtesy. New Life Spectrum and Omega One are some of the best, one small bottle will go a long way for our fish so don't be deterred by the price! With better food, they eat less of it to stay healthy which means the bottle does last longer.

Anyway, the first three ingredients or four are your indicator for how the food is. The food should be some sort of whole or meal, you do not want to see Wheat, Corn, or Soybean in the first three ingredients. One is okay if it's Wheat, that is used as a binder to keep the pellets together, but Corn and Soybean should not be there on the top. You should see things like Halibut, or Whole Salmon Meal, or Krill, even Seaweed is very good for them and garlic. You can take a look at your Tetra stuff to compare.

Here are the first ingredients of NLS the Small Fish Pellets:
Whole Fish, Whole Antarctic Krill, Chlorella Algae, Whole Wheat Flour, Omega-3, Ulva Seaweed, Spirulina, Kelp, Garlic, Alfalfa, Mollusk, Fruit Extract, Vegetable Extract, Beta Carotene, Vitamin A Acetate, Vitamin D Supplement, Vitamin E Supplement, Vitamin B12 Supplement, Niacin, Folic Acid, Biotin, Thiamine, Riboflavin Supplement, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride, Calcium Pantothenate, L-Ascorby-2-Polyphosphate (Stable C), Choline Chloride, Ethylenediamine Dihydroiodide, Cobalt Sulfate, Ferrous Sulfate, and Manganese Sulfate.

Here are Omega One Betta Buffet pellets:
whole salmon, halibut, shrimp, wheat flour, wheat gluten, fresh kelp, astaxanthin, lecithin, L-ascorbyl-2-phosphate (source of vitamin C), natural and artificial colors, vitamin A acetate, vitamin D3 supplement, vitamin E supplement, vitamin B12 supplement, riboflavin, niacin, pantothenic acid, folic acid, biotin, inositol, tocopherol (preservative) and ethoxyquin (preservative)

**Note that they split up their wheat content, one reason I don't trust them as much as NLS or SeaChem's Betta food

And here is Tetra floating Betta pellets:
Wheat flour, fish meal, wheat gluten, potato protein, corn starch, soybean oil, corn gluten, shrimp meal, dried yeast, monobasic calcium phosphate, lecithin, algae meal, yeast extract, ascorbic acid (source of vitamin C), inositol, niacin, a-tocopherol-acetate (source of vitamin E), riboflavin-5-phosphate, l-ascorbyl-2-phosphate (stabilized vitamin C), choline chloride, d-calcium pantothenate, thiamine mononitrate, pyrodoxine hydrochloride, vitamin A palmitate, menadione sodium bisulfite complex, biotin, cyanocobalamin (source of vitamin B12), cholocalciferol (source of vitamin D3), manganese sulfate, zinc sulfate, ferrous sulfate, cobalt nitrate. Color Includes: Bixin, beta-carotene, canthaxanthin. Ethoxyquin as a preservative.

See the differences?

 

[kkrepps920]

I just ordered some API General Cure. It'll get here in two days. Hopefully that will help. I've given him New Life Spectrum pellets before and he wont eat them. He really wont eat any pellets. There aren't a lot of pet stores where I live, just big chain ones like Petco and Petsmart and they don't carry high quality flakes. At least not the ones near my house. I'll just have to start ordering all of my fish supplies online to get better quality things.

He doesn't seem to be having trouble swimming. But I did a 25% water change today and when I put him back in his tank, he went about half way to the bottom then kind of floated to the top. It was really weird, i've never seen him do something like that before.

 

[Veloran]

The General Cure sounds good. We can treat him with it, it's gentle enough and hopefully we won't need any medicated pellets. You're also going to want to clean the substrate as much as possible to remove any of the parasites that may have fallen down there.

Lilnaugrim did a good explanation on the food and sooner than later you would want to consider switching him over, so keep an eye out to see if you can get some ordered, but for now let's try to get him healthy before stressing him with food changes.

If you can get the pictures, it would help with making a better determination.