Is treatment for this fish pointless at this point?

[shynepo3]

My female betta is getting worse and worse, and i'm just wondering if i'm prolonging her suffering by continuing treatment. I had started another thread, and although i've gotten some good advice, nothing has seemed to work. she's now on furan 2 and api salt, but it seems pointless.

at this point, i dont think she's going to make it...she's getting worse by the hour.

the cotton on her body looks like it's coming out in 4 diff spots, and she does not move. when she's at the bottom of the tank, i can see her gills moving like she's struggling for air, and even being upright seems difficult. the water seems to "rock" her slightly back and forth.

every few minutes, after being in some sort of lifeless trance, she sprints up to the top to get air, then comes crashing down, bumping into gravel, decorations, etc. etc. she'll then eventually end up on the gravel bed, and the whole process repeats itself.

also, she is pineconing too now. it seems like she columnaris, fungus and dropsy in one. i'm assuming it starts off with one type of disease and eventually worsens into multiple diseases?

should i even bother anymore? seems like she's suffering so much...should i just place her in a cup of water with a lid and put in freezer? i've read it's a good way to end their life with very little suffering. i dont have clove oil.

also, preparing for the worse, what should i do with the tank? its' cycled, would i have to clean out everything and start from scratch? ugggh..i hate cycling, but i dont want any contagious disease left over for the next fish that lives in there (haven't decided yet if i will even bother getting a new one...)

 

[Sssea]

There's a sticky on humane euthanasia in the sick fish forum that will help you with your decision.

Best of luck.

 

[jcolon]

Sorry to hear about your fish ... if you feel she's suffering then it's really your call. If it were my fish ... I'd probably euthanize if I've tried treatments without success.

However instead of placing your fish in a cup into the freezer ... get a cup of near freezing water ... basically to the point when ice crystals start to form .. then place the fish in it. The freezing temps shock tropical fish to death very rapidly ... it's how I put one of my GreenBarbs down back in July. The other way I've read results in a slow freezing death.

As for the tank ... some diseases do not survive long without a host .. but I'm not certain about all the ones your betta has. I'd put the filter media in tank water and give the substrate, decor and glass a thorough cleaning before adding new fish. You may have a mini-cycle since your bound to kill off the BB in the substrate .. almost like starting over. The filter media can be rinsed of with treated PWC water before putting it back in the filter so you'll have that BB to re-establish your tank.

That's how I'd go about it ... but hopefully someone who's gone through this can provide better advise.

Good luck!

 

[shynepo3]

she just died...i came down to have a smoke, and just check on her, and she was died, against the wall in her cave.

my concern is now the tank....do i really have to scrub everything down and start fresh? it's cycled...took me over 3-4 weeks of fishless cycling and i dont want to go thru that again..

 

[BlackMagic]

sometime adding med to a sick fish will just kill the fish faster.

clean water n salt is all you need/up the heater.

 

[shynepo3]

sometime adding med to a sick fish will just kill the fish faster.

clean water n salt is all you need/up the heater.

i did that for about 1 week straight, and nothing changed. Meds was something i really tried avoiding, trust me.

Her body looked really bad, with big white spots...like she was ti dyed. also her whole chin area became with two.

i'm glad she's not suffering, and it's over. i think the mistake i made was not continuing with the fungus cure treatment. i had about 5 days in between the fungus cure and furan2. maybe she would've survived had i kept on with it.

 

[Vircomore]

Just a quick question if you're still following - what type of filter were you running on the aquarium - and what type of filter media did you have in it?

 

[shynepo3]

Just a quick question if you're still following - what type of filter were you running on the aquarium - and what type of filter media did you have in it?

hob filter - sponge in tank, s10 marina (really small). inside, i used filter floss, media bag with carbon, and on top pot scrubbies. i just stuffed the 3 layers in.

 

[Vircomore]

Ahhh, I had a thought that might be the case. I know it is too late for your Betta, but to give you a bit of advice for the future:

Activated Carbon effectively absorbs lots of chemicals. Including the chemicals used in the treatment of fungus and bacterial infections.

So while you may have been doing a great job adding the medication to the tank - your filter was doing an even better job of removing it.

So just for the future - if you ever need to treat medications again make sure to pull out any carbon and it may save you this hassle. The carbon can be put back in after the treatment is successful to remove any leftover medication.

 

[shynepo3]

Ahhh, I had a thought that might be the case. I know it is too late for your Betta, but to give you a bit of advice for the future:

Activated Carbon effectively absorbs lots of chemicals. Including the chemicals used in the treatment of fungus and bacterial infections.

So while you may have been doing a great job adding the medication to the tank - your filter was doing an even better job of removing it.

So just for the future - if you ever need to treat medications again make sure to pull out any carbon and it may save you this hassle. The carbon can be put back in after the treatment is successful to remove any leftover medication.

the carbon had been removed during treatment. in fact, prior to treatment, i was using the filter cartridges made for the s10 marina, but all of them contained carbon. so that's why i got filter floss and pot scurbbies. i only put the carbon in once she died, and during the break in between fungus cure and furan2.

 

[Vircomore]

Ahh, fair enough. I've heard horror stories of people who spent quite a bit of money on expensive medications only to find that they had been throwing it away to Activated Carbon.

It's frustrating to lose a fish to something you can't seem to stop - I lost a Blue Ram to an untreatable brain tumor.

I will agree that the "dip into freezing water" is probably the 2nd cleanest (and the easiest) method of euthanasia next to Clove Oil.

 

[CatmanDru]

I'm sorry you lost your friend.