No luck with my Betta's - help!

[Iggy]

Just starting off - rookie, and we already lost our first betta 'Robin', a beautiful red with clear fins active betta. Just got sick, stopped moving, layed at the bottom till one day he died. I read all the forums, but when I went to the LFS, they said to do nothing (no salt, no melafix, nothing)

I feel absolutely guilty for not getting help from other betta enthusiasts earler, he was a great fish.

We picked up another beauty betta 'Finchy' on Sunday, a solid flame-red brute. I cleaned the tanks and gravel and plants (plastic)with a salt/vinegar mixture and rinsed it very well. I treated the water and let it get up to temperature before I floated Finchy in the tank for 20 minutes.

I noticed this Thursday morning he had a small white spot on one side of him. After work, he had a bunch more white dots (with small fuzzy's coming off the dots). As a rooky, I guess it might be ICK, so I have done the following:

Tank size: 2gal Hex, acrylic, undergravel filter

Current temp: 80-82F

Fish: Red Betta Male

Symptoms: White growths all over body, with a little fluf. Fish can swim, but jerks alot when moving, usually lays down at bottom of tank. Still eating ok.

Treatments done so far:
Added 1 tbs aquirium salt.
Added ICK treatment (copper)
Added Melafix (anti-fungus)

Please help! I would feel awful if I lost another fish this week!!!

Thanks!

!!!!UPDATE!!!!
It has been 26 hours since Finchy broke-out with white tufts all over his body. I must admit, I have been stressing all day about it - I physically feel sore about it, exhausted.

I did a little more talking and research. I do not believe Finchy has Ick. There is nothing grandular about the spots, they are fluffy. I am betting he has a bacteria problem. We have a filter on our tap water that is fairly old, and I bet it contained enough bacteria culture to aggrivate the stress the fish was having from being in a new environment with an overly observant caretaker (me hovering around his tank every few minutes to see how he is doing.)

Because his 2gal tank is just a few days old, I decided to move him into a smaller medicated tank and completely sterilize his 2gal tank just to make sure. I went out and bought some reverse osmosis water and let it sit out while I sanitized EVERYTHING in his tank... New rocks (rinsed with boiling water & a bit of salt), all the plastic plants and filtration system was soaked in boiling water with vinegar and rinsed a bunch of times with clean water. (In fact, the water was a little too hot for some plastic tubing in the filtration and I had to replace it.) The tank was cleaned with vinegar and very hot (not boiling) water, rubbed down with a clean soft cloth, and dried completely until it did not smell anymore.

I know this is likely OVERKILL, but I do not want to even think I missed something.

I put Finchy back in the tank treated with MelaFix, coppersalts and a tsp of wardey salt. His body has less fluffy white tufts, but his skin is still looking a bit fuzzy and his color is faded. He still is swimming a bit, usually hovering at the top or bottom. Still eating (a little less however). I am going to leave him alone till morning now and let the meds do there thing.

Oh, I wanted to know... I turned off his airstone pump that powers the undergravel filter. I was making so many bubbles on the surface, it was completely covered and Finchy seemed to have trouble taking his breaths from the top. Is it the Melafix causing it to sud-up like that? Smells like it! I plan on turning the filter pump back on tomorrow morning after the water has a chance to settle a bit and see what happens.

Drop me a line, I could use the support :? Long live Finchy!

 

[FroggyFox]

Careful about using medications together at the same time...sometimes they will cancel each other out or react with each other.

But it sounds good up till now. You can usually put in a little bit of extra medication, and leave it in the tank for longer than it says to...but overall follow the directions on the medication.

Are the spots more like little grains of salt...or like tufts of cotton? from what you said it sounds more like a fungus than ich...but I could be wrong.

You could also put some stress coat in there to help him out a bit if you feel the need to do something else for him.

Good luck Hope he gets better soon and welcome to the board!

 

[Iggy]

I found a really nice small fish store owner in a nearby town. I did not get my betta from him, but he was nice enough to call me back during non-working hours to try and help.

He mentioned that he lost a whole stock of betta's over 1 day when his store's heater broke down on a Sunday. All the other fish tanks had heat, but all his bettas got cold and fuzzy and did not make it.

I think my first Betta, Robin, might have suffered from lack of heat as well because we turned-down the house heater during the hot day, and we got a cold night (in Canada Eh!) and the house temp dropped to about 68F. Still feel bad about Robin. If I had the meds, he might have lived.

Finchy is hovering at the top of the tank now. I do not know if this is better or worse than laying on the bottom.

I want to get a 10gal tank with heater, trying to get one for nothing is a hard thing to do. I was planning on using it as a breeding tank (hence the heater), in a few months once I get the hang of keeping them alive icon_sad.gif

I will keep an eye on Finchy's tank thermometer. If it drops too much at night, I can move him to the computer room where its always hot!!! (5 computers with monitors will do that!)

I should try to sleep, but I just don't want to wake-up to find Finchy suffering or dead! He is in my care and I will do anything in my power to give him a long life.

 

[FroggyFox]

Leave the airstone on! With warmer water you need more oxygen in the water.

Sterilizing his tank like that means that the tank will have to cycle all over again...you know that right?

 

[Iggy]

Hi FroggyFox,

Ya, I know it killed the cycle - but the cycle was only 3 days old at the time. Watching Robin suffer and die made me paranoid about excessive bacteria in the water. Is there any tests for bacteria (good or bad stuff) - other than the evidence hanging off my betta?

I will leave the tank alone so it can cycle now. At least now I have the peace of mind that there are no other contaminates in the tank.

Do you think Finchy will have trouble breathing through a layer of bubbles?

 

[catfishmike]

hey just a side note,try and turn down the air coming from the airstone you can get a two way valve and bleed off some of the air.bettas come from still warm water.try to offer as little agaitation as possible.also don't worry about your betta getting enough oxygen.bettas and other fish in the same family have an special organ called the labyrnith which allows them to breath atomspheric air like we do.

 

[lizwinz]

your fine turning off/removing the airstone...bettas dont require alot of oxygen in the water and they dont usually enjoy current (espiecally when already stressed or sick)

all the cleaning is a little bit of overkill but i totally underrstand the need to have it CLEAN but the fact is no matter what we do there are always going to be bacteria, fungus and parasites in our tanks just waiting for a stressed out fishy to pick them up...they are ALWAYS present in ALL aquariums

so what i'm saying is if your treating the fish with meds your also treating the tank at the same time and theres no need to break everything down and clean it...with the exception rare, incurable things like tb

i know you already decided not to break the tank down again but i thought i'd let you know that for future reference

that being said, i think i should also tell you that you might keep having these problems until the tank is cycled which could be 6weeks to a few months...going through a cycle can stress your fish which can of course lead to disease

the best way to get your fish through the cycle is to pick up some test kits for ammonia and nitrite and keep them under dangerous levels so your fish dosent get too stressed...having only 2gals mean these levels can rise quickly but it also means doing a 50%water change when needed isnt alot of work...i would test daily, and probably do water changes daily in that size tank depending on your readings and of course continue medicating until he is better

the test for ammonia and nitrite will also so tell you how your cycle is going...when they are both 0ppm that means the "good" bacteria have reached levels that can handle your tanks bioload

heres a link that helped me when i was starting out http://faq.thekrib.com/begin.html

also declorinated tap water is best for fish...RO and spring water lack alot of minerals that fish need

sorry about the long post and all the info you probably werent asking for

btw hang in there it does get better*thumbsups

--liz

 

[Iggy]

Thanks lizwinz & catfishmike,

Long posts are fine!

Finchy is about the same, still has fluffy spots, still swimming only when necessary, but he has has not eaten in the past 12 hours.

Our tap water is pretty hard, (high Ph), so that is why I started off with RO water. I will switch back to treated tap as soon as we get a replacement filter for our water supply.

Has anyone else has this with their betta (bacteria infection in a new tank)? If so, did he/she survive? If so, how long before the symptoms improved?

 

[Angelfish]

Sounds like a fungus to me. It happened to my bala sharks a long time ago, and unfortunately even with meds, they didnt make it. Go to your LFS and they can give you medication that may help cure Finchy. Good luck =)

 

[Iggy]

It is touch and go now for Finchy.

He can still move, but needs some coaxing. I added some extra heat (60w bulb table lamp) to raise the temp. in the tank to 80F.

He seems to have gotten better (less body fluf) the worse again this morning (more fluf). I added a drop more copper and another tsp of salt to the 2gal (it only had 1 tsp before). I know the salt does little to stop the fungus, but the higher concentration seemed to help last time.

Lets see what a little more meds, heat and time will do!