What is wrong with this poor gal?

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VioletEmber

Aquarium Advice Freak
Joined
Jul 8, 2011
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Long story short, I got this little lady a few days ago, a female Betta. She looked stressed in the store but figured she would color up once at home. Although her stress stripes are gone, she has a dark rim on her fins, weird red streaks on her fins and her gills are usually slightly flaired. The first pic is really blurry but hopefully you can see the shape if her gills sticking out.

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My first thought was just that she had a rough time in transit, etc. But since I am paranoid I am thinking septicemia now or something. I am treating her with clean water and salt right now. She isn't getting worse and may be slightly improving but just wondered if anyone had any ideas.
 
She is getting no worse but seemingly no better. She isn't lethargic but she isn't that active either...

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Any ideas as to what this is?
 
Anyone have any input? I would guess just fin rot that will slowly heal since it isn't getting worse- but the flared gills worry me.
 
I am going to see if I can get better pictures -- I actually thought of your pictures when I got a look at her fins, mumma! Would septicemia cause her flaring gills?
 
VioletEmber said:
I am going to see if I can get better pictures -- I actually thought of your pictures when I got a look at her fins, mumma! Would septicemia cause her flaring gills?

I'm not sure on the flaring but I know it causes labored breathing. How is she acting? It could be ammonia burns from the cup. If the veins are red, go right into the tail and are an unbroken line then it's septicemia.
 
Pictures remind me of the ammonia burns our goldfish had when we "won" him at the carnival. If that's what it is, she might grow them out, but it will take months.
 
I think it may be ammonia burns then. New pictures from this morning. I guess it is good news that she was wiggly enough it was hard to get a good photo-.

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Ammo burns are usually dark. It looks like she could possibly have velvet..though I've never seen that cause flaring the gills. Does she have a metallic sheen around the gill area?

I think the red in the fins looks like her natural coloration.
 
oh this poor little lady! i think she may have a little of everything! i will look at her with a flashlight when i get home and see if there is anything gold or dusty looking on her. She does look rather "patchy" near her head and along her back. She is eating and swimming about like a normal betta.

Siva, i think you may be right that the red is her natural color -- she may be marbled? which might account for the patchy coloration on her back and head.

It does seem to me that the dark rim along the edge of her fins is starting to fade a tiny bit. could be wishful thinking but i'm pretty sure that was fin rot or ammo burns (which i now am going to look at pictures of...) the red isn't really lines going through her tail like Mumma's pictures-- they are really more little dashes of red. her top fin (dorsal?) looks much redder now than the day I got her.

ok, i will keep up her salt and water changes treatment for another week and see if anything develops. If it is septicemia and/or velvet - what other signs might i be looking for? I have two other bettas that have marks on them and at first i thought they might be velvet, but absolutely nothing else about them seems wrong, so my guess is that they are scars from fights or injuries in transit. maybe she has the same. I think I will start a screenplay about her journey... but she needs a name!
 
IME it is often silver, and not gold, though that is how you will hear it described.

Yes, she looks marbled. I have a female with the flecks of red in her fins, it's interesting because she doesn't even have any red on her body, and the coloration came out probably a couple months after I got her. It's normal for their colors to change as they relax and even mature so I wouldn't worry about that.

What temp is she at? Velvet is a big problem with bettas kept at temps too low, and inconsistent, which she almost surely was before you got her. Make sure she's at a nice toasty 80 degrees now and this will help with the healing.
 
Yeah, her color makes it hard to look for ammo burns. :(
It may just be me, but she looks a little bloated to me as well.
I hope she is ok!
Gills flared like that can be a sign of chlorine burns in fish too. If you got her like that, one option is that somebody did a water change on her without using water conditioner.
 
Yeah, her color makes it hard to look for ammo burns. :(
It may just be me, but she looks a little bloated to me as well.
I hope she is ok!
Gills flared like that can be a sign of chlorine burns in fish too. If you got her like that, one option is that somebody did a water change on her without using water conditioner.


considering that 1)the way that i got her was that i exchanged a male betta who was marked as a female for her, and 2) that while I was looking at their female selection I found a CROWNTAIL MALE in a "veiltail female" cup... it is highly possible that she was put into chlorinated water! My favorite guy at this LFS was on duty that day and he muttered something I couldn't quite catch under his breath about the guy who was putting the new betta shipment into their cups...

in those first pictures she does look a little bloated - she ate a ghost shrimp! I put one in her tank with her and they spent a day together. Everytime I watched them I would sing the "getting to know you, getting to like you, hoping you like me too" song from The King and I. Then she ate him.

I'll make sure she doesn't get too much food, I don't need to add to her troubles.

I'm learning alot - i wasn't aware of chlorine or ammonia burns before.
 
Lol, ok, then I wouldn't be concerned about the bloated look. :)
The things about the chlorine is just an option. I don't really know of many other reasons for the gills ot be flared like that. Another reason is water thats too warm, but bettas are fine in water even close to 90 degrees (well, at least for short term like ich treatments), so I highly doubt that is an issue.
 
Yeah, I think she has just been through it. After work I checked on her and her fin looked much redder than even this morning.

So I need a name for her - some heroine who has gone through a lot but prevails in the end...
 
Shes such a gorgeous betta!! I agree with everyone, looks like ammonia burns.

VioletEmber said:
So I need a name for her - some heroine who has gone through a lot but prevails in the end...
Lol, the first thought that popped into my mind was Katniss, from The Hunger Games triology. I am wholeheartedly addicted to those books : p
 
GuppyLover said:
Shes such a gorgeous betta!! I agree with everyone, looks like ammonia burns.

Lol, the first thought that popped into my mind was Katniss, from The Hunger Games triology. I am wholeheartedly addicted to those books : p

Katniss! Oooh, I love the Hunger Games! And boy, she does go through a lot, very good suggestion!
 
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