Betta Fin Rot?

[Meg Landaluce]

Hi guys...
I didn't think anything was wrong with my Betta fish until I started scrolling through old pics when I first got him and noticed his fins look different than they used to. He seems totally healthy otherwise, very active, always eats, etc. He is in a 10 gallon filtered, heated, cycled fully planted tank. He is alone in the tank. I test my water parameters often and ammonia is 0 ppm, nitrite is 0ppm, ph is about 7.2 and nitrate is 0ppm. I've had this tank for over 3 months and honestly wouldn't be writing this post if it wasn't for the fact that I looked at an old picture where his fins looked fuller. I do 30% water changes once a week consistently and have NO idea how I could've prevented this. I've had this fish for the whole time I've had the tank and I don't know what to do. Any advice? His fins don't have any spots that I can tell. He is a salmon colored betta with some pink coloring and white translucent like fins so I'm having a really hard time telling what could be fin rot and what's his normal coloring. There is nothing sharp in the tank that he could've injured himself on. Sorry for the long post. I really appreciate any help.

 

[Pufferlily]

In my experience, fin rot on see thru fins tends to be accompanied by a visible margin and will be ragged and uneven. If the edges just look shorter than they used to, it may be the way your betta is holding them. New fish (esp pink and salmon bettas I’ve noticed) tend to hold their fins fanned out in display/dance pose for a while before they relax. If he likes swimming very quickly, especially if he likes to slap the tank walls on turns, he’ll very likely be holding them more tightly for speed and minimum drag.

Incidentally, I had a pink female who went thru several metamorphoses where her clear fins shrank and grew visibly, then grew back solid red with white tips and got twice as long after she laid her last eggs and started being territorial. When she was done changing she had a red koi-pattern on her previously uniform pink body and grew beard-flares under her gills.

It could be any number of apparently normal things, and pink/salmon colorations in particular seem to have the odd tendency to change fin shape and color several times. I think it’s because their juvenile fin-cells stick around well into adulthood.