Looks like ich...great

[hacket]

Well it's kinda looking like my female betta has come down with ich. The past two days she has had clamped fins, and I thought it might have had something to do with a bacterial blossom that I had. I've gotten control of that with a couple 25% water changes and rinsing the filter with cold water.

But now I was looking at her and I'm seeing a few white spots on her tail...great...I just introduced my pleco this last weekend so that would explain it. Combine that with the bacterial blossom (I forgot to take out the rest of an algae tablet) and it started. It would also explain why my pleco has been twitching sometimes.

I wish I had a quarantine tank...I'm just not in any position to have one, being in college and all.

I read the sticky about ich and it makes sense. I'll probably stick with medicine for now. I'll let everyone know how it turns out.

 

[hacket]

Just a quick question. I've decided to go with the heat and salt method. However, I've seen conflicting info regarding the pleco. Is this method safe for a pleco or not?

 

[Zagz]

Heat is fine, skip the salt. Make sure to add extra aeration and the betta and the pleco will be fine.

 

[kangster]

I've gotten control of that with a couple 25% water changes and rinsing the filter with cold water.

you dont mean tap water by cold water right?
always rinse the filter in old tank water that you are about to throw out or pour into a garden if you are like me
how old is the tank?

 

[neurotik]

I agree with Zagz on the heat method, but no salt. I had a slight Ich outbreak on two of my clown loaches a month or so ago and I slowly raised my water temperature to around ~87F for a couple of weeks (about two weeks after I saw the last white spot disappear) and everything turned out just fine. No deaths, no other fish infected, no reinfection when I began lowering the temperature either. During this time I also pointed both of the outlets of my canister filters toward the surface a bit more so that they agitated the water surface quite a bit to help provide additional oxygen to the water during the increased temperatures. That should be all you need to do besides be patient, be very observant of when the white spots begin to disappear, and be sure to continue the heat treatment even after you see all of the spots are completely gone so that you have a much lower risk of it recurring soon again. If you see your fish sort of gasping at the surface a lot, this may be a sign that you need more aeration in your water due to the higher water temperatures not holding enough oxygen, so be sure to keep a close eye on your fish during this time.

Good luck with the Ich, I hope your betta and pleco get better soon!

 

[hacket]

Thanks for the responses. It's definately ich. I got up today and my betta has a few more spots and is scratching on things. Unfortunately I don't have a heater in the tank (never have needed one) so I'll get that after work today. My light seems to heat the tank up so I turned that on before I left to make sure it's a little warmer when I put the heater in.

kangster - Yea I used tap water. I guess it's bad for the bacteria due to chloromines and other additives? The tank is about 3 months old and so fully cycled. I've been testing for the past couple days and nothing seems too abnormal. I had an ammonia level of .5 two days ago and a little lower yesterday. Water changes and no algae tablets for the pleco helped that.

 

[neurotik]

When you add the heater to your water, be sure to increase the water temperature slowly. Don't just crank the heater up to 87F and plug it in. Changing the water temperature that much in a short period of time is not a good thing. When I did mine, I raised my temperature about 1-2 degrees every 12 hours. Yes, it takes a couple days to get to that key temperature, but it's much less stressful on your fish than just doing it all at once.

 

[hacket]

Yea, especially in this small of a tank. I'm going to be very careful. Going to buy it in about an hour. I'll post back later tonight.

 

[neurotik]

Good luck! Post if you have any more questions and I'll do my best to help you out since most of this stuff is still fresh in my mind due to my recent outbreak of Ich.

 

[hacket]

Thanks neurotik! I got the heater. I got one of the nicer ones. It's a marineland 25 watt. Says it's for tanks smaller than 8 gallons and it has a dial on top that actually shows the temp.

I came home and found the temp to be a nice 84 F so I put the heater in and turned the dial to about 85. I'll keep a close eye on it to make sure nothing catastrophic happens.

Just a note about my betta, she's still as active as can be! She swims up and down when I come home and follows my finger still so I'm pretty sure the disease isn't weakening her yet. She's still got spots and clamped fins though and is scratching a lot.

 

[neurotik]

It's good that she is still very active and everything. Is she still eating well too? I know when my clown loaches had Ich, both of them that were infected were still very active and social when I came around, they were always swimming around my tank and playing together like they normally do, and they never lost their appetites or became finicky about eating or anything like that, which was good.

Just keep an eye on the temperature and try to get it above 86F as quickly as you can without harming your fish and then keep it there. Another recommendation I got from several people when I was battling the Ich was to do partial water changes each day to help remove some of the free-swimming form (Ich has a three-stage life cycle, in case you have no read about it) of the parasite that is in the actual water column. I did this for about the first week or so of my heat treatment, but then I stopped doing it every day and only did it about two to three times per week for the remainder of the treatment. I'm not sure if it helped any or not, but just another suggestion if you have free time and you want to try it out to see if it helps things along any better.

 

[hacket]

I changed water yesterday and am planning to every day for about a week and a half. Probably just under a gallon, since it's a three gallon. And yea she still eats all the time. It seems like she's skinnier than usual, but I'm not going to change my feeding. It's probably because of the clamped fins that she looks this way. I feed her about 3-4 small betta pellets every morning and no more. I don't wanna risk over feeding.

The pleco is as active as ever. Lol. Won't stop moving once it's past like 7pm. Other than that he sleeps all the time. I think I caught this round at the right time, thank goodness.

 

[neurotik]

Spotting it early makes a big differences in my experiences. I was lucky enough to spot mine when only one of my loaches had a single spot on its tail fin, and began treating it the very next day.

As long as your betta is still eating well and is acting normal I wouldn't worry too much about it, just be patient and allow it to run its course with the heat. Being careful about feeding is good, especially with bettas. Remember, their stomachs are only about the size of their eyeball

Keep me updated with how things go for you over the next days/weeks -- I'm rooting for you and your fishies!

 

[hacket]

I didn't know that about their stomachs. Wow. Haha. Thanks, I'll keep you updated. Taking care of fish sure is fun, even during the hard times, because it feels good taking care of them.

 

[neurotik]

Yup, it's certainly a lot of fun even when your fishies aren't feeling well. You'll feel really good once the Ich has finally cleared up too and your betta is swimming around happily and healthy once again

 

[hacket]

I am happy to report a balmy 84.5 degrees F this morning, so I went ahead and turned the dial to about 86F. By the time I left for work it had about reached 86F so my ich should be neutered by now. Haha. I'll turn it up to about 88F this evening.

My fish are still doing fine as well! My betta was biting my finger this morning as I picked a floating rock out of the water. It tickled!

 

[neurotik]

Good to hear things are still going well with your little betta. Once you have your water temp stabilized between 87-88F just keep it there and continue observing your fish to make sure she is handling it alright.

 

[hacket]

Well the temp is about 88.5-89F in my tank now and the fish seem to be taking it ok for now. My betta doesn't seem as active now though. She's sitting on the gravel more and there are more spots on her.

neurotic, did your fish sit on the gravel at all?

 

[neurotik]

Nope, mine never went to sitting on the bottom any more than they normally would before getting Ich. I only had it on two of my clown loaches, both of which are normally extremely active during the day. They're always playing all around the tank together and swimming from top to bottom. You will probably start to see more spots before they start to disappear, as that is part of the Ich parasite's life cycle. More will appear on the fish, then fall off. I remember my loaches got quite a few spots on them and they stayed there for probably close to a week before they started to noticeably disappear, and then there were those few stubborn spots that seemed to take forever to finally disappear, but one morning I woke up and both of my loaches were completely free of all spots, and then I just kept the temperature high for another week or so and then slowly started dropping it over the next couple days and everything has been fine since.

Keep an eye on your betta though if she is starting to sit on the bottom. It may be a sign that something else is bothering her, or maybe she is just not handling the Ich as well as my loaches did. I'm sure some fish get more stressed out from Ich than others do. Is she still eating fine or has her appetite started to drop off as well?

 

[hacket]

Well she seems to be doing fine I guess. Just once in a while she will sit in the corner, til I get up and look at her and she'll start darting around again, up and down. She still eats fine as well. My temp was about 89F, but I lowered the dial to about 87F. It seemed like my pleco was having a hard time breathing (he would stretch his gills way out like every 30 seconds a little while ago) and I thought perhaps it's a little too high. I my water level is lower so the filter is disrupting the surface quite a bit. There are bubbles flying everywhere under it, so it should be aerated pretty well.

It could have just been slightly too warm, so I'll see what happens. They are both swimming around pretty normally right now.