fin cut / rot?

[mcshell]

Recently, i found some small cuts on Casper (my betta boy)'s tail.
I'm not sure if that's rot, since it's like some small trangular cuts..

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Just small ones, ~ 0.5 cm. what bothers me is that it seems to have 3-4 of these.

I've moved him back to my tank with circulation but inside a floating tank, and have added some aquarium salt to it. Also added some conditioner and a tiny bit of melafix.

I did a water change, and the water chemical is fine. What's the cause of this fin cut? Is there anything I can do about it?

thanks!

 

[Iggy]

I know sometimes the fins get tears of them just from regular activity or rubbing against objects. The extra-long male fins are susceptable to tearing, and as long as it is not getting ragged, greyish, or have pieces falling off, it should be fine just to treat with a little bit of Melafix (or bettamax), clean water (of course) and you can skip the salt - salt is mostly for goldfish gill function and bettas have no real use for it... its just that salt has been around for so long everyone recommends it!

 

[Leopardess]

As mentioned, betta fins can get torn by rubbing on things like plastic plants, decor, etc. If he was in by himself, its probably because of this.

If the cuts are in any way ragged looking, with either white/grey/or black edges then it is fin rot/fungus. Keep an eye on the fins...are they healing or getting worse. If they get worse, I'd put in some medicine..obviously.

I might also add in something like Marycin to ward off any infections.


As for salt, I believe that many bacterias/fungi do not like salt in the tank...which may partly discourage their presence....


Fin rot/fungus, however, is usually due to poor water conditions (infrequent water changes), or stress from temperature/other existing disease/other fish/etc.

 

[mcshell]

Thanks for the advice! I'm watching it closely, and good thing is that it doesn't seem to get worse, but doesn't seem to get better.
I am still unsure of it's cut or minor rot... problem is that my betta is white in color -- so kind of hard to tell if it has white edge.
I saw the website in bettatalk, the rot picture seems very serious.
I really hope he was just fooling around and hurt himself...

He is still very active and eating very fast. Just that he isn't building bubble nest (but he doesn't seem to build one unless he sees a female anyway), and he isn't flaring when i put a mirror in front of him. (he just looked at me, as if saying "hey, i know that's my own reflection. dont try to make fun of me") Hopefully this is okay?

I'll keep doing water changes and keep 2 eyes on him.

 

[Iggy]

For some reason, white/pale bettas seem to have more issues with fin-rot that the brighter solid colored bettas. Another local breeder in my area says she always needs to keep maracyn on hand for her white bettas because it happens so often.

Fins grow back very slowly in adults, and they usually grow-out starting clear (transparent) with a black edge, then get solid white, then get return to the original color.

Rot is usually very progressive, and you would see it eating away at the fins very quickly (within a day or so), so if it was rot, you would probably have seen more damage by now.

Fin-rot is not as serious as body rot, which happens when the fin-rot spreads to the bettas body. Its much harder to stop after it reaches the body.