Betta Losing Fins

[FallenAngel]

I believe my Betta has fin rot and I was wondering if you'll agree and how I should medicate it. I have heard a lot of medications bother bettas, so I want to avoid those. Here are some pictures of him now.



He is in a 5 gallon tank with a heater and filter. I have had him for about 2-3 months. The substrate in the aquarium is sand, I have a few live plants in there and I have also been putting cattapa leaf in the tank. I am halfway wondering if I left the leaf in the tank to long and that's what started the problem.


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[FallenAngel]

Here is a picture of him before I noticed a problem:



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[Polkadots]

That's a gorgeous betta! I don't know much about fin rot... Hopefully someone more knowledgeable and experienced will come and help.


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[Brookster123]

Could be a few things, flow to high? Poor water conditions? Testing water? Wc routine??

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[FallenAngel]

Could be a few things, flow to high? Poor water conditions? Testing water? Wc routine??

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Thanks Polkadots! And the water conditions wheren't the best, I've been doing water changes about every 2 weeks instead of every week like I should. I have had a lot going. I am tightening down on that however and will defiantly be more responsible with those. The water flow isn't to high, I can't hear the water hit the surface and it's just enough to sway the plant below it a little but nothing to extreme. I have not been testing water, I'll be sure to do that later tonight.


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[dragon14]

He's not a crowntail is he?

Definitely looks like he's lost some finnage. We had some small ammonia issues and went through a similar issue. We treated him with api aquarium salt. Twice a couple weeks apart, because the same thing happened twice. Never again!

I can get you the link I used and help you with this if you're interested in going the salt route.

Do you have another tank you could treat him in? We took ours out of his 10g and back into his first home, a 2gal, to treat him, just coz the smaller size was easier to deal w, plus we didn't want to salt the whole 10g tank.

 

[dragon14]

We found in our 2g after just 48 hrs we had about .25 ammonia in the tank. Our 10g had .25 after just 2 weeks so I imagine in a 5g it doesn't take too long for ammonia to get to a readable level.

I would do a partial water change (at least 50%) twice a week, three times a week I think would be better, to be perfectly honest with you in your 5g. Unless it's cycled but I have a feeling it's not.

 

[FallenAngel]

It should be pretty well cycled, I put a filter cartridge from another tank in there to speed up the process since I hadn't expected to get a Betta. If I has known I was getting him I would have cycled it first. 50% water change is great, but our tap water has ammonia and nitrites in it. Whenever I do a water change there is a spike in these. I finally got my 30 gallon fixed of this problem by adding purigen to the filter but does purigen come in bags small enough for a 5 gallon? I would be I interested I. The salt method but all I have is his 5 gallon and a 10 I am trying to break down


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[dragon14]

I'm glad it's pretty well cycled

That puts a yank in the chain. How much ammonia and nitrites are in your tap? You may want to alert your town/city. Ugh. That's awful. I tested ours thankfully none.

I have no idea about that kind of water or stuff. I know there's some stuff that claims to remove ammonia and nitrites from water but don't know anything about them. I hope someone who does reads this thread or maybe you could make a new post about the subject.

As for salt, I'd recommend 1tsp per gallon for 3 days then 1.5tsp per gallon for 5-7 more days. Or you could do 1.5tsp per gallon then 2tsp per gallon for a stronger dose. He cannot be in salt more than 10 total days in a row or it could cause organ damage. If you want or think you need to treat again/a second time, wait at least 10 days in between.

You'd need to do a 100% water change after the 10 days to clear the salt out of the tank; again, he shouldn't be exposed to it long term. You could put him in a clean, rinsed plastic container temporarily thats never been washed with soap while you add the salt water then again when you remove the salt water. Maybe a 1 or 2 cup round plastic ziploc food container would work for this (bought new) or if you still have the container you got him in, provided it's clean.

Good luck and if you have any other salt questions I'll do my best to help and I'll get you that link later when I'm on my computer. (On my iPod touch at the moment).

 

[dragon14]

Oh and the only reason I asked about a crowntail is because their fins look a little different but I think I can tell that he's not.

 

[aqua_chem]

I can't see very well from the pictures exactly what the problem is. Very hard water can sometimes make betta fins look pretty gnarly, and that big white rock looks pretty suspicious for leaching hardness.


Also, in my experience, many bettas have more fins than brains and get themselves in all sorts of trouble in a tank. We had about three bettas at one time and at least one had always dinged himself up fighting with a leaf or something stupid like that.

 

[FallenAngel]

The rock! Of course! It's Texas holy rock and raises the PH! Our tap water ph is already over 7.5 so I'm sure with the rock the water is to hard for him, I'll get that out and put some driftwood in there. That may be part on the problem, and no he's not a crown tail, he's a dumbo something. I had a topic about my water from the tap going a while ago, I'll post the link


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[FallenAngel]

Okay here are the readings straight from the tap:

pH: 7.6


Ammonia: between .25 and .5 (the color was in the middle of those 2 on the chart)


Nitrite: between 2 ppm and 5 ppm which I found very odd coming straight from the sink...


Nitrate: 0 ppm

I've been hesitant to do water changes in the 5 because I'm afraid it will hurt him more since I'm adding ammonia, I had a problem with fish getting sick in my 10 after water changes which is why I bought purigen for the 30. It's sussposed to help reduce ammonia and since I put it in ammonia and nitrates have stayed at zero but my problem right now is that purigen does not come in a size small enough for my 5 gallon


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[Brookster123]

That's borderline illegal if those readings are correct.

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[FallenAngel]

That's borderline illegal if those readings are correct.

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Well that's not good, maybe I'll test it again later to be sure. Maybe they fixed the problem... Our water is known to have issues, I don't drink from the tap and more, would it help if we put a filter on the sink?


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[dragon14]

That's disgusting (about the water). Please restest and if no change someone should be told that can do something about it.
Yeah get the rock out, and after a week or two add the wood maybe?

Just in case, salts not a bad idea and what I told you won't hurt him if you do it as I said. It's up to you though.

My buddy had a beautiful perfect tail and its all raggy and shredded now. Partially from fin rot I think and maybe he nipped himself during the short time he was floating in salt water in his big tank in his cup. Then I broke the cup while he was in it on accident but thankfully it didn't break so bad as to leak. Then he was put into his 2g as soon as I'd gotten it ready for him. He probably got cramped and bit himself but I duno since I never actually saw him bite himself.

The tail may or may not heal, but as long as it doesn't get worse, that's the thing to make sure of

 

[FallenAngel]

Yeah, I'll test both the water and the tap later tonight to see if that helps. I'll definitely get that rock out of the tank, and I'll add a new catappa leaf and the driftwood to start lowering the ph


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[dragon14]

Let us know how it goes

 

[venymae]

Okay here are the readings straight from the tap:

pH: 7.6


Ammonia: between .25 and .5 (the color was in the middle of those 2 on the chart)


Nitrite: between 2 ppm and 5 ppm which I found very odd coming straight from the sink...


Nitrate: 0 ppm

I've been hesitant to do water changes in the 5 because I'm afraid it will hurt him more since I'm adding ammonia, I had a problem with fish getting sick in my 10 after water changes which is why I bought purigen for the 30. It's sussposed to help reduce ammonia and since I put it in ammonia and nitrates have stayed at zero but my problem right now is that purigen does not come in a size small enough for my 5 gallon


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Did I read this right? You are adding ammonia? Just wanted to clarify this. Also, although purigen helps the water for sure there are many other chemicals/pollutants/minerals in water that we may or may not know about that could be harmful in high quantities and will build up if all you do is top off the water. Water changes are your best bet for fin rot in my experience, and purigen will help if you have less than ideal tap water and obviously to remove the basic chlorine/chloramine used to treat tap water. I have had similar problems with my doublemoon beta and it has always (100% so far) cleared up when I get back up on my water changes/water quality. Hope this helps your betta is BEAUTIFUL!

 

[Fresh2o]

@venymae - OP is not intentionally adding ammonia. It is present in the tap water. I went through the same thing one year (ammonia 1 ppm straight out of the tap).


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