Old Tank Syndrome?

[sparklepuff]

Hello all. I'm new here (previous member on FishLore, I want to join new forums/connect with more folks!) and wish I could introduce myself on more positive terms, but I hope you might have some insights into my situation.

Due to struggling with my bipolar disorder for the last 3 or so months, I must admit that I did not keep up with the maintenance of my tank very well (semi-regular water changes, slacking on them when the water test readings were good). There was quite a bit of algae growth (no ammonia spikes, thankfully...I performed semi-regular testing and had one of those SeaChem monitors in the tank). The day before yesterday I decided to buy a glass cleaner to scrape up the algae and do a deep clean of the gravel. Ended up doing probably a 75% water change (there was just so much debris that had been hiding in the gravel, it was disgusting).

I want to help my betta (Stitch)as much as I can and feel terrible for letting him down like this.

Tank
What is the water volume of the tank? 5 gallon
How long has the tank been running? 5 months
Does it have a filter? Yes
Does it have a heater? Yes
What is the water temperature? 80 F
What is the entire stocking of this tank? One betta

Maintenance
How often do you change the water? Every other week. See description.
How much of the water do you change? ~25-50%
What do you use to treat your water? SeaChem Prime
Do you vacuum the substrate or just the water? Yes

Parameters
Did you cycle your tank before adding fish? No
What do you use to test the water? API Easy Strips
What are your parameters? We need to know the exact numbers, not just “fine” or “safe”.
Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 20-40 (hard to read)
pH: 6.2-6.8
(hard to read, but on stripalkalinity is low)

Feeding
How often do you feed your fish? 1x day
How much do you feed your fish? 3-4 pellets
What brand of food do you feed your fish?Omega One Color Mini Pellets
Do you feed frozen? No
Do you feed freeze-dried foods? Yes, blood worms and sometimes brine shrimp

Illness & Symptoms
How long have you had this fish? 5 months
How long ago did you first notice these symptoms? 3 days ago for lethargy, fin biting for about 2 months
In a few words, can you explain the symptoms? Lethargy (sitting on bottom of tank), fins are progressively in shreds (very "even"/C-shaped edges & no whiteness...does not look like fin rot at all)
Have you started any treatment for the illness? Large water change two days ago, had tried indian almond leaves & Seachem StressGuard for fins previously.
Was your fish physically ill or injured upon purchase? No
How has its behavior and appearance changed, if at all? Just his fins

More Details:

After the water change, my nitrates went up to about 80-100 ppm afterwards, and I've noticed my betta Stitch is sluggish. He's still moving around and was excited to eat his food today, but goes back down to sit on the bottom usually (not laying down). I put a piece of nitrate removing sponge in the filter to buy some time while I figure out what to do next, and the nitrate level was actually 20 this morning, now look to be creeping towards 40 (the strips are hard to read and I need to go get a new master test kit today to be sure). He has been biting his fins for a few months, which I presume is due to the water quality not being the best (the tank was never visibly dirty, nor was there a spike in ammonia/etc. as aforementioned...but it still was not right of me to neglect it/him.)

I'm supposed to go home to the west coast for Christmas on 12/17 (I'm in university) and am worried about this situation not resolving in time. I have a pet sitter coming who will be feeding him every 2 days, and can brief her on what to do, but want to have a plan/do all I can before I go. Would love any advice you guys might have.

 

[Aiken Drum]

Old tank syndrome is essentially where you have neglected tank maintenance. What commonly happens is your Carbonate Hardness (KH)/alkalinity/buffering capacity gets used up and is not replenished with water changes when you stop doing them. These 3 terms are slightly different when getting into specifics but in an aquarium are considered the same thing.

When your water loses its KH your nitrogen cycle cant process the ammonia and this can build up. The other side of this is low KH loses its ability to absorb acid and pH drops. As pH drops, ammonia becomes less toxic, so unless you are testing you dont notice as your fish are fine.

Do a water change, KH gets replenished, pH rises, ammonia toxicity increases. All results in dead fish. Trick to resolving this is gradual, incremental improvements. Small, regular water changes, rather than 1 big one.

Im not really sure why you think you have old tank syndrome. Nothing in your post suggests this.

Tail/fin biting can be a sign of stress and poor water conditions can trigger stress. Sometimes its boredom, or pent up aggression. Ive heard some betta keepers periodically put a mirror in the tank for short periods so they can work this out of their system. Maybe it just has overly long fins and your betta is irritated by them.

Are you sure its biting them? Maybe just catching and tearing them on your aquascape.

 

[ColdKoi]

Your nitrates spiked after the water change? Did you do another water change? Did you test the fresh water?

Fish are generally pretty tolerant to nitrates but given the current condition of them you don’t want to add any more strain. 80-100 is way too high in the best of situations. Even your other reading of 20-40 is getting high enough to warrant a water change.

Test your fresh water (maybe I missed it, but you’re using tap water?) and make sure it’s not testing positive for nitrates and if that looks good, I would do another (small) water change before you go out to buy a better test kit. Then test again when you get home.

Like mentioned, the worst thing you can do is to do major water changes and cleaning all at once