lauritastlouis
Aquarium Advice Apprentice
Hello,
I don't want to ruin a good thing so I thought I'd ask advice before I moved foward.
Long story short ---- Betta had fin rot - treated with Maracyn, got better, then rotted again. Treated with Flagyl (per vet advice) and then combined with Maracyn and Maracyn II - slowed rot, and then got worse.
Did several different fixes per differnt local "specialty shops" (would follow advice, fish got worse, then moved on)
Finally went to a shop, and they said "hey, bring the poor guy in. We wanna see him". They looked and said that he was way to active to be too sick to survive. Tested his water, said it was fine for now. Said that was not inflamed enough for bacterial Fin Rot, was not white and fluffy enough for Fungi. Said it was stress, especially since I was seeing large chunks of tail.
Due to very bad bacterial bloom and that he was in a 10 gallon alone, suggested adding a few cory cats and a snail. told me to stop using ammolock and any chemicals. Said wc 1x a week or if ammonia hit 1.0 or more. (I was always adding something to the water. I swear after 3 months the tank still hasn't cycled). Said I might look into a better filter (i was using the top Fin 10), but if I only added the Corys and snail I could survive with it.
So I got 2 albino cory's and a golden apple snail. and I also introduced a new biowheel (think it is the 150... It's the one that goes to 20 gallons). Ammonia has been a bit high, (hit 2.0 one time, usually hangs out in the .5ppm to 1.0ppm range). It's been 1 week, and even though I included the biomedia "sponge" from the old filter, nitrites and nitrates have been 0, which leads me to belive that the old filter was incapable of sustaining a biofilter, since all the meds I have used are "sworn" to not affect ben. bacteria.
Only other change I've made is that i moved the betta's tank into the living room. It was in my kid's room, and so we had the led daylights on during night and off at night (room fairly well shaded during day).
Within 3 days of having buddies, bacterial bloom was gone, and suddenly mr. betta has TONS of new tail growth. this is with ammonia hitting 2.0ppm. I have done 2 changes. since last Monday. (did 50% water change when I moved the tank last monday since my kid dumped one of my buckets while moving the tank).
So, now that you know what I've got going on (poor betta has been through it all with 2 months of meds, daily water changes etc), what I'd really like to know is a) any thoughts on how a betta with low to non existant water levels could be rotting away like crazy, only to heal with "friends" and higher ammonia levels, and b) if I added blue led lights at night for a moonlight effect, if you think that said blue led's being on all night would affect him?
thus far, we have had our stove light on at night (which provides some illumination to the tank, due to our apartment setup), so our little friend hasn't ever lived in complete darkness. The led lights thus far have still alowed our snail to be active at night, but I am terrified of doing anything to upset the apple cart with our betta. The LFS that I found seemed to think that the chunks of tail I was finding and the rapid fin loss (over 1/4" daily) was due to high stress from constantly messing with the tank. This is a mom n pop place, and he said that when he has kept bettas in the past in 10 gallon tanks, they seemed to do better with a few companions than all alone. This was novel because the other LFS's that I dealt with that seemed to give me advice that hurt the fish more all said that the betta should remain forever alone in his tank.
Thanks! (And sorry for the long monologue!!)
I don't want to ruin a good thing so I thought I'd ask advice before I moved foward.
Long story short ---- Betta had fin rot - treated with Maracyn, got better, then rotted again. Treated with Flagyl (per vet advice) and then combined with Maracyn and Maracyn II - slowed rot, and then got worse.
Did several different fixes per differnt local "specialty shops" (would follow advice, fish got worse, then moved on)
Finally went to a shop, and they said "hey, bring the poor guy in. We wanna see him". They looked and said that he was way to active to be too sick to survive. Tested his water, said it was fine for now. Said that was not inflamed enough for bacterial Fin Rot, was not white and fluffy enough for Fungi. Said it was stress, especially since I was seeing large chunks of tail.
Due to very bad bacterial bloom and that he was in a 10 gallon alone, suggested adding a few cory cats and a snail. told me to stop using ammolock and any chemicals. Said wc 1x a week or if ammonia hit 1.0 or more. (I was always adding something to the water. I swear after 3 months the tank still hasn't cycled). Said I might look into a better filter (i was using the top Fin 10), but if I only added the Corys and snail I could survive with it.
So I got 2 albino cory's and a golden apple snail. and I also introduced a new biowheel (think it is the 150... It's the one that goes to 20 gallons). Ammonia has been a bit high, (hit 2.0 one time, usually hangs out in the .5ppm to 1.0ppm range). It's been 1 week, and even though I included the biomedia "sponge" from the old filter, nitrites and nitrates have been 0, which leads me to belive that the old filter was incapable of sustaining a biofilter, since all the meds I have used are "sworn" to not affect ben. bacteria.
Only other change I've made is that i moved the betta's tank into the living room. It was in my kid's room, and so we had the led daylights on during night and off at night (room fairly well shaded during day).
Within 3 days of having buddies, bacterial bloom was gone, and suddenly mr. betta has TONS of new tail growth. this is with ammonia hitting 2.0ppm. I have done 2 changes. since last Monday. (did 50% water change when I moved the tank last monday since my kid dumped one of my buckets while moving the tank).
So, now that you know what I've got going on (poor betta has been through it all with 2 months of meds, daily water changes etc), what I'd really like to know is a) any thoughts on how a betta with low to non existant water levels could be rotting away like crazy, only to heal with "friends" and higher ammonia levels, and b) if I added blue led lights at night for a moonlight effect, if you think that said blue led's being on all night would affect him?
thus far, we have had our stove light on at night (which provides some illumination to the tank, due to our apartment setup), so our little friend hasn't ever lived in complete darkness. The led lights thus far have still alowed our snail to be active at night, but I am terrified of doing anything to upset the apple cart with our betta. The LFS that I found seemed to think that the chunks of tail I was finding and the rapid fin loss (over 1/4" daily) was due to high stress from constantly messing with the tank. This is a mom n pop place, and he said that when he has kept bettas in the past in 10 gallon tanks, they seemed to do better with a few companions than all alone. This was novel because the other LFS's that I dealt with that seemed to give me advice that hurt the fish more all said that the betta should remain forever alone in his tank.
Thanks! (And sorry for the long monologue!!)