Betta With Unknown Illness     /RMF        12/9/15
I was wondering if you could help me with my Betta. I can't figure out what may be wrong with him. I am thinking a bacterial infection. Over a week ago, our Betta was not being as energetic as he normally is and wasn't too excited about food. At first, he would spend most of his time either on top of his tank in different areas in the floating water sprite or he would be in his log. He would occasionally swim down to the bottom of the tank in the morning and evening, but usually just stayed at the top the rest of the day. The past two days, however, he has been staying around the same area at the top of the tank in the water sprite and barely moving. I can get him to eat a piece of food a day, but that is about it.
<What re water quality tests, temperature? Maintenance notes? Foods, feeding?>
His fins have been somewhat shredded for awhile, it started as occasional pinholes in his fins and turned to his fins being shredded. I tried to first treat that with more water changes and cappata leaves. When that wasn't helping, I started to add Seachem StressGuard (this was about 3 weeks ago). After about a week of StressGuard, he seemed to slow down some
but would perk back up after a water change. So I stopped the StressGuard just after 1.5 weeks to see if it was affecting him. But about a week ago, he starting to slow down and start staying at the top of the tank. First, I was doing daily water changes and added the Betta Spa packets in his tank.
I had also added a poly filter pad to his filter in case there is something in the water (it turned tan/brown). I have since removed the PolyFilter since I am medicating his tank. Since I have already lost a Betta this year to what first seemed like constipation but I believe may have been a bacterial infection (which was housed in the same tank), I first added
Metronidazole to some frozen brine shrimp for him to eat in case he also has a bacteria infection. He had the Metronidazole for 3 days until he wouldn't eat it and after a day, I switched to Kanaplex and added that to his water. I added the second dose of Kanaplex this morning and he hasn't really moved. Look wise, I cannot see anything wrong with him except for the shredded fins. He has not lost any color, his fins aren't clamped and he is not bloated. He does have some disfigurement from birth, I am assuming. He does not have his ventral fins and his right gill has stuck some. He is about 9 to 10 months old, from a local fish store that gets their Bettas from a local breeder. We have had him for 2.5 months.
His tank is a cycled 15 gallon tank. The temperature is between 79 and 81 degrees. He lives with ember tetras, cherry shrimp, MTS and Spixi snails.
Everyone else is doing well and the MTS and shrimp are continuously breeding.
<Good signs>
He usually eats Omega One Betta Buffet flakes (2 to 3 small flakes), twice a day, since he has trouble eating the pellets. He also gets his diet supplemented with frozen brine shrimp, bloodworms
<I'd skip these; implicated in disease>
and mysis shrimp about 3 times a week. Right now, I am trying to give him some flakes and/or brine shrimp to see what he will eat. We do weekly water changes of 25% to 30%.
Water parameters are:
Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 10
pH: 7.6
Hardness (GH): 5
Alkalinity (KH): 6
<These are all okay...>
His tank has Seachem Onyx Sand Substrate with live plants, driftwood, ADA Dragon Scale stone and PetSmart decor. The filter is an Aqueon QuietFlow 10 power filter. We are thinking of changing to a stronger filter.
<Mmm; should be fine as is>
Could something be wrong with the tank itself since we had another Betta in this tank that got bloated and then died a couple of months later?
<Possibly; though what I cannot say>
Everyone else in the tank are doing well. Or could it be something else besides a bacterial infection? Right now, I am treating him is his normal tank since everyone else is doing well with the treatments. Am I using the right medication? If there is a harmful bacteria in the tank, would a UV sterilizer help?
<Possibly>
He is still a young fish and I really want to save him. If need to, we can set up another tank for him but that still doesn't tell me what the problem may be.
Thank you for any help you can give me.
--
Thank you,
Stacy
<Am going to pass on your note to Neale Monks here, in the hope that he has some suggestions.
Bob Fenner>
Betta With Unknown Illness /Neale         12/9/15
I was wondering if you could help me with my Betta. I can't figure out what may be wrong with him. I am thinking a bacterial infection. Over a week ago, our Betta was not being as energetic as he normally is and wasn't too excited about food.
<First thing to do when tropical fish stop eating is check the heater. If the water is cold, their appetite stops. Bettas should be maintained at around 25-28 C/77-82 F. They also need warm air since they're air breathers. If the tank has a hood, the air will become warmed automatically, but open topped tanks (unwise with Bettas because they jump out) won't have this air warming facility, so placing the tank away from cold draughts is important. If you're happy the water temperature is within that range, the next thing to check is filtration. Grab an ammonia or nitrite test kit, and measure one or the other. Ammonia is sometimes misleading (tap water can have ammonia in it, rendered harmless by good quality water conditioner) so checking your tank water with a sample of tap water will indicate whether the ammonia levels are the same (fine) or the aquarium has more ammonia than the tap water (bad). Nitrite test kits are easier to use, but assume there's some biological filtration in the tank, since making nitrite is the first step in the filtration process. If you have a tank without biological filtration then nitrite tests might come our "safe" even though the water quality is terrible. That's because none of the waste produced by the fish has been turned into nitrite. But if you have biological filtration of some sort, the nitrite result is a very good indicator of what's going on. Anything above zero indicates the biological filter is overwhelmed: too few bacteria, too much waste. Increasing the flow rate can help, so can replacing some of the media with better quality media (Siporax and other premium brands will cram in more bacteria per cubic inch that standard sponges and noodles). But it may well be the filter is simply too small, or else some of the filter capacity is being filled with basically useless junk (carbon for example). Review, and act accordingly. Almost all mystery health problems with tropical fish are environmental, at least initially, so reviewing heating and filtration go a long way towards nipping problems in the bud.>
At first, he would spend most of his time either on top of his tank in different areas in the floating water sprite or he would be in his log. He would occasionally swim down to the bottom of the tank in the morning and evening, but usually just stayed at the top the rest of the day. The past two days, however, he has been staying around the same area at the top of the tank in the water sprite and barely moving. I can get him to eat a piece of food a day, but that is about it.
<So long as he's eating something, that's promising.>
His fins have been somewhat shredded for awhile, it started as occasional pinholes in his fins and turned to his fins being shredded. I tried to first treat that with more water changes and cappata leaves.
<I would remove these leaves while the fish isn't well. They're decomposing, which is why/how they release "good acids" into the water, but in the process the bacteria decomposing them are using up oxygen. Save them for when the tank is fine again, sure, but for now, they're a random factor you can't adequately assess.>
When that wasn't helping, I started to add Seachem StressGuard (this was about 3 weeks ago). After about a week of StressGuard, he seemed to slow down some but would perk back up after a water change.
<A good sign the environment is amiss.>
So I stopped the StressGuard just after 1.5 weeks to see if it was affecting him. But about a week ago, he starting to slow down and start staying at the top of the tank. First, I was doing daily water changes and added the Betta Spa packets in his tank.
<I would lay off these, too. Bettas don't need magic water. They are thoroughly domesticated fish (like Goldfish) that can/do thrive in properly warmed and filtered tap water. Adding extra potions is yet again another unknown factor that makes assessing the tank difficult. Let's cut to the chase here. Fish product marketers know that the majority of Betta owners
are inexperienced aquarists who don't want to spend much money. They know these people try to keep Bettas in very small tanks or bowls, and then avoid buying heaters and filters. But what the average Betta buyer will do is spend money periodically on stuff that will supposedly keep their Betta healthy despite the shortcomings of their aquarium or bowl. Easier to get these folks to spend $10 every month for a year than $100 up front, hence the massive range of Betta-specific but low-cost items out there. None of which are necessary! In, say, an 5-8 gallon tank with a heater and filter, a Betta is really no harder to keep than a Guppy, will eat plain vanilla fish food, needs nothing added to the water beyond water conditioner, and is not even remotely fussy about water chemistry. Make sense?>
I had also added a poly filter pad to his filter in case there is something in the water (it turned tan/brown). I have since removed the PolyFilter since I am medicating his tank.
<Correct move. Ditto carbon. Both these, as well as large quantities of decaying organic matter, can affect the efficaciousness of medicines.>
Since I have already lost a Betta this year to what first seemed like constipation but I believe may have been a bacterial infection (which was housed in the same tank), I first added Metronidazole to some frozen brine shrimp for him to eat in case he also has a bacteria infection. He had the Metronidazole for 3 days until he wouldn't eat it and after a day, I switched to Kanaplex and added that to his water. I added the second dose of Kanaplex this morning and he hasn't really moved. Look wise, I cannot see anything wrong with him except for the shredded fins.
<Typically a sign of Finrot, but can also be fin damage. Is the shredding clean, like someone chopped his fins with a knife? Or are the fins patches with dead which patches and some orange or red areas of inflammation? The latter is bacterial Finrot, the former physical damage.>
He has not lost any color, his fins aren't clamped and he is not bloated.
He does have some disfigurement from birth, I am assuming. He does not have his ventral fins and his right gill has stuck out some.
<This is a quite common birth defect, yes.>
He is about 9 to 10 months old, from a local fish store that gets their Bettas from a local breeder. We have had him for 2.5 months.
<Do bear in mind Bettas are near enough annual fish in the wild. They should live a bit longer in captivity than this, perhaps 2 years on average, with odd specimens living well past that. Yours is middle aged rather than old then. Bettas do become less active with age though.>
His tank is a cycled 15 gallon tank. The temperature is between 79 and 81 degrees. He lives with ember tetras, cherry shrimp, MTS and Spixi snails.
<Can you move out the Ember Tetras? Characins generally are sometimes nippy towards Bettas, and Ember Tetras have been confirmed as occasional fin-nippers. If you must mix fish with Bettas, stick with peaceful bottom dwellers such as Corydoras, or harmless surface dwellers like Hatchets.>
Everyone else is doing well and the MTS and shrimp are continuously breeding.
<Good.>
He usually eats Omega One Betta Buffet flakes (2 to 3 small flakes), twice a day, since he has trouble eating the pellets. He also gets his diet supplemented with frozen brine shrimp, bloodworms and mysis shrimp about 3 times a week. Right now, I am trying to give him some flakes and/or brine shrimp to see what he will eat. We do weekly water changes of 25% to 30%.
Water parameters are:
Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 10
pH: 7.6
Hardness (GH): 5
Alkalinity (KH): 6
His tank has Seachem Onyx Sand Substrate with live plants, driftwood, ADA Dragon Scale stone and PetSmart decor. The filter is an Aqueon QuietFlow 10 power filter. We are thinking of changing to a stronger filter.
<A decent little filter. A bigger filter might not be necessary here if ammonia and nitrite are zero. Of course more filtration is always nice, but the flip side is that Bettas dislike currents, being adapted to ponds and ditches.>
Could something be wrong with the tank itself since we had another Betta in this tank that got bloated and then died a couple of months later? Everyone else in the tank are doing well. Or could it be something else besides a bacterial infection? Right now, I am treating him is his normal tank since everyone else is doing well with the treatments. Am I using the right
medication? If there is a harmful bacteria in the tank, would a UV sterilizer help?
<No. UV kills planktonic phases of various life forms, primarily algae and protozoan parasites. It doesn't cure already sick fish, and even though it suppresses the life cycle of things like Whitespot, it rarely eliminates them 100%. Outside of retail/wholesale situations where slowing the spread of disease saves money, there's little to no use for UV in freshwater
aquaria.>
He is still a young fish and I really want to save him. If need to, we can set up another tank for him but that still doesn't tell me what the problem may be.
Thank you for any help you can give me.
Stacy
<If the fins are clean shredded, I'd be looking at the Ember Tetras. Try removing them or the Betta, and see what happens. Medicate as per Finrot, and if he gets better, then that's the problem! Cheers, Neale.>

Re: Betta With Unknown Illness        12/10/15
I have a picture attached from today so you can see his fins. His fins have red in them, so it is hard to know if there are red inflamed areas.
<You're looking for pale red, pink even... rather than the deep cherry red to purple-red you see on Bettas.>
Does that look like fin nipping or bacterial fin rot?
<Physical damage certainly; fin-nipping a definite possibility.>
Can fin rot cause a fish to be listless?
<Yes; more psychological than anything else... lack of security, so the fish feels nervous or unsettled.>
That is my main concern of his symptoms.
<Understood.>
What would be the best medicine for fin rot? I am treating with Kanaplex.
Is that a good medicine? I haven't seen any change yet and he has one more dose. Should I do another round of Kanaplex or try a new medicine after this one? I need a medicine that is also safe for shrimp and snails. I also want a medicine that won't kill the beneficial bacteria.
<Some type of antibiotic should be safe with shrimps and snails. Avoid, specifically, medications with copper, formalin and organic dyes (such as Methylene blue, malachite green, etc.). Ideally, separate the snails/shrimps from the fish during treatment. All this said, once the fin-nippers are removed, the fins should heal without medication.
Cheers, Neale.>