1 white spot on Betta

[gigirod]

Just noticed a single small white spot on our Crowntail Betta's head. The spot looks slghtly raised, almost cottony. He's the only fish in the tank.

Marley is in a 5 gal marineland tank. The tank does have a filter and we have a bubbler on it as well. We just tested the water and got 0 ammonia, 0 notice, and 5 nitrate. Ph is 7.0 and the temp is at 80 degrees. Marley has been in the tank about 2 weeks. Prior to that we had done a fishless cycle on the tank that took about 4 weeks.

We put some aquarium salt in the tank when we saw the spot and were thinking of doing a 20% water change tomorrow. That would be the first water change for thus tank. There's nothing new in the tank. As for food, we feed him Hikari Betta bio-color and twice a week give him freeze dried brine shrimp.

We don't think it's ich. Everything we've read says he would have many tiny white spots like salt. Can this be fungus? How would he have gotten it? The water is good. How can we treat it? We also thought about using Tetra lifeguard but hesitated because the box says do not use in newly established tanks. Would our tank be considered newly established? Has anyone used the lifeguard? Did it work?

 

[dkpate]

Since you have only changed the water once in two weeks, that probably explains the fungus. In any tanks 5 gallons or smaller, the water needs to be changed at least twice a week, at 25-50%.
If you keep using salt, don't use it for more than 10 days, since it can cause the bettas kidneys to shut down. You have to manually remove salt too, it doesn't evaporate.
You can probably take the bubbler out, and just leave the filter, bettas don't like alot of turbulance.
Stop feeding freeze-dried food, it bloats bettas.
Sounds like fungus though, and I would use 1/2 doses of Melafix with him. Bettas don't habndle strong meds well, and if you ever dose something that has specific directions for tetras, use the same for bettas.