Hi all.
I'm new to the forum, as I am giving up on trying advice from local stores...
Hopefully those who have been doing this for a while and have some experience with tropical fish can help me, please.
Long story short: We have a 20L fully cycled tank (0 amonia for months) where 2 bristlenose plecos were living for the past 8 months (about 1 inch and 1.5 inch in size each).
We purchased a Betta 3 weeks ago and they all live happily together. The Betta doesn't annoy them and they leave the Betta alone.
I've been feeding premium food to the Betta (4 pellets of Hikari OR New Life Spectrum Betta food per day - no more.) and he's been happily swimming around, exploring and just being merry about the place.
We do weekly water changes of about 40% of the 20L tank (gravel vacuuming every single time).
This is our first Betta, so upon close inspection, I noticed he has some white marks in his mouth, near the gills.
I've googled for diseases and it doesn't look like Fungus at all, but it does look like some photos I've seen from "Columnaris" bacteria.
As I'm new to the hobby and not super experienced, I'd love to hear your opinions on what these may be and how to treat them to avoid losing the poor Betta and the 2 little plecos living with him.
I've treated him for the past week with "Bettafix" but it doesn't seem to have done anything to the white marks. The temperature is being kept stable at 24.5-25 degrees Celsius and ammonia levels are at 0. Nitrates are also within the acceptable range (always way, way less than 30ppm) and with the regular water changes, these levels never reach high numbers.
Thank you.
I'm new to the forum, as I am giving up on trying advice from local stores...
Hopefully those who have been doing this for a while and have some experience with tropical fish can help me, please.
Long story short: We have a 20L fully cycled tank (0 amonia for months) where 2 bristlenose plecos were living for the past 8 months (about 1 inch and 1.5 inch in size each).
We purchased a Betta 3 weeks ago and they all live happily together. The Betta doesn't annoy them and they leave the Betta alone.
I've been feeding premium food to the Betta (4 pellets of Hikari OR New Life Spectrum Betta food per day - no more.) and he's been happily swimming around, exploring and just being merry about the place.
We do weekly water changes of about 40% of the 20L tank (gravel vacuuming every single time).
This is our first Betta, so upon close inspection, I noticed he has some white marks in his mouth, near the gills.
I've googled for diseases and it doesn't look like Fungus at all, but it does look like some photos I've seen from "Columnaris" bacteria.
As I'm new to the hobby and not super experienced, I'd love to hear your opinions on what these may be and how to treat them to avoid losing the poor Betta and the 2 little plecos living with him.
I've treated him for the past week with "Bettafix" but it doesn't seem to have done anything to the white marks. The temperature is being kept stable at 24.5-25 degrees Celsius and ammonia levels are at 0. Nitrates are also within the acceptable range (always way, way less than 30ppm) and with the regular water changes, these levels never reach high numbers.
Thank you.