betta death

[flushingfish]

My daughter's betta went to the great beyond on Tuesday. he was doing well in a lightly planted fully cycled 5G hex. All of a sudden he had several small white spots on him. They looked almost granular and sandy. I thought it might be ich but wasn't sure. I raised the temp in the tank to 85F as I had read that this helps with ich. Unfortunately he just started hiding under a rock. This kind of shredded his fins up and he was looking raggedy in the course of 2 days. I was going to dose the tank with melafix and pimafix for the fin and scale damage but when I got home from work he was belly up. Was this probably ich and what do i need to worry about before restocking this tank?
The water parameters on the last test were
ammonia=0
nitrite = 0
nitrate= 10ppm

 

[rich311k]

I am sorry for your loss.

Sounds like ich. You need to go over 86F to kill it. Sounds like you did not have enough time. To be sure it is gone leave the tank fishless for 3 weeks and the ich will die without a host.

 

[flushingfish]

yeah he went into a serious downhill spiral in a couple of days. Luckily my 6yr old hasn't bonded to fish as pets. She views them as more of a pretty decoration so her only concern was that she has to be the one that flushes. Oh well I guess it's better than hysterics.