[jkmartinjk]

My Betta, Toby, has had a white patch on his tail for almost a week. My dad first noticed it and thought it could a bacterial infection. I have plastic plants in his tank so he could have cut his tail on them (his fins are verrrry long.) I picked up Melafix a day later and did the recommended dosage for four days. He HATES the stuff. Every time i put it in the tank he flares for like five minutes and then goes and hides in his castle. I don't blame him, just smelling it I can tell it is very strong. So instead of doing the recommended treatment of seven days, I stopped at four, because he didn't seem to be improving, but not getting worse either...

He's the only one in the tank, his temp is at about 80, I feed him betta pellets (won't eat bloodworms), I do 25% water changes at least once every two weeks, I've had him for four months (no problems), and he has never been lethargic and still swims around now but not as much.

I'm at a loss of what to do! I've attached a picture... He' not a huge fan of cameras, obviously, but I hope you can see. The problem area is just a the end of this tail, that white patch.

Thanks for any suggestions!:thankyou:

 

[lilnaugrim]

Sorry, just reading this now and wish I read it earlier. Well first off, you need to bump up water changes. Water changes should be done weekly regardless of tank size unless you've got like a 1000 gallon going!

So for the white stuff, is it cottony of does it look smooth like it might be part of the tail? Does it looks like a fungus type growth?

So what size tank is this? I think you can really start off by helping him with the water changes, do twice a week water changes around 50% but if you can do more, go ahead and do more.

 

[jkmartinjk]

@lilnaugrim

Thanks for the reply. Toby still has this, and it looks about the same. I started Pimafix a week ago and cleaned his tank today. Neither Pima or Mela fix helped, not that I can tell anyway.

It's not cottony it just looks like part of his tail has became white and translucent in places. I also noticed that his pectoral fins are not looking good. They look shredded and there is pieces of what I presume to be cartilage sticking out. Again, that hasn't changed with a week of Pimafix.

It's around a five gallon tank.

He's still eating and swimming around and everything. I took out some of the plastic plants today that were a bit gnarly, probably the cause of the infection in the first place.

Any advice would be helpful

 

[lilnaugrim]

Hmm, well if it looks like part of his tail then I'm guessing he's just growing out his fins but generally it's not that white and it doesn't stay white for long. Is that entire patch still white or is it fading black now? or is he blue? hard to tell in the pic sorry. If not then my next best guess is Marbling, a gene that makes something change colors which we can see in Maize Corn, tomatoes and fish

But the best course for most any diseases is first to just really keep up on your water changes and do extra ones to keep infection out. What size tank again?

 

[jkmartinjk]

He's blue with a bit of red, and it's remained white/translucent for 3 weeks now. It's about five gallons.

Thanks for your help

 

[lilnaugrim]

Okay, if you can try to do every other day/3 times a week water changes that will really help if it is infection. at least 50% is good but more is always great, however never do a 100%.