EvesFishJourney

Brief synopsis of previously transpired events: My halfmoon betta, Floyd, was lethargic, barely eating, and was losing color drastically. I reached out for advice, and determined he was suffering from fin rot. I quarantined and treated him with erythromycin and stress guard, and at the recommendation of a few forum members, added almond/cattappa leaves for additional antibiotic properties. Present day: I am happy to announce that after a full week in quarantine, Floyd has made a full recovery! A few days before he was due to be put back in his home tank, I decided to upgrade him from his normal 5 gallon home, to a 20 gallon retirement tank. His previous 5 gallon house had a filter that was causing very strong flow that was built into the tank and I was not able to remove. I believe it was causing him stress from being pushed around and may have led to him getting fin rot. I did try to buffer the flow using a small piece of filter sponge, but it didn’t do much. While I know his rapid decline was caused by him trying to fight off the infection, he had definitely slowed down in recent months, so I figured it was time to give him a chill place to live out the rest of his life. Floyd currently resides in a 20 gallon (tall?) with a peaceful Aquarium Co-op sponge filter, so no more harsh flow! He has the plants and little rock house from his old tank, and a new log to swim around. I also got him a betta log, so that he has somewhere secure where he can rest near the surface so he can get air when he needs it. I did some research and found out that older food can make fish sick as well (makes sense, old food would make humans sick) so I tossed out his betta pellets that were at least a year old, and got him a small pouch of Hikari Betta Bio-Gold. Its small enough that I’ll finish it in about three months and replace it with a fresh pouch so his food is never going bad. I’ll include some pictures below. Also yes, I know, my current light situation is janky at best! It came from my old 2.5 gallon tank, so its very small for a 20 gal, but I’m saving up for a more appropriate one. And finally, a big thank you to everyone who commented on my original post with any and all advice on how to help my poor boy. There were a few days before I started treatment that I thought I was going to lose Floyd. I know his passing is eventually inevitable, but I wanted to do everything in my power to help him recover, or at least ease any pain he might have been feeling if it were to be his last few days. You folks helped me more than you know, and I am so grateful Floyd is alive and well! Thank you thank you thank you 🥲😊❤️🐟

In my experience, wonder shells are great! They usually dissolve fully into the water within a few days. They’ll add some of that additional hardness you need and also keep your water crystal clear. They’re also great for adding calcium for keeping your snails shells healthy and strong, and same with your shrimp if you have any. If the wonder shell doesn’t add as much GH as you’re wanting, definitely look into adding some Seachem Equilibrium. I’ve had pretty good luck with that in the past. I know API has a similar product that will increase hardness, though I can’t remember the name off the top of my head. Best of luck!

Thank you so much for the advice! Floyd made a full recovery and I’ve had him back in his home tank for about a week and a half now, and he’s continuing to do great! I added two small almond leaves to his tank and he loves them! One floated down to the tank floor and he doesn’t seem interested in that one, but one of them has just continued to float on the surface, and he likes to push it around or float directly beneath it 🙂

Thank you! I was struggling to come up with not too cheesy names for my little guys, and I’m a die hard Floyd fan so I was either going to use snippets of song names for them, or band members names, and I ended up naming them all after the band members 🙂

Thank you! They were my first rough attempts at aqua-scaping, and I’m excited to learn more about it!

Thank you to everyone who left a comment on my previous post about my sick betta, Floyd! I went to my LFS and purchased some almond leaves as recommended by @Coluand @Kurt Brutting, API erythromycin, and Seachem Stress Guard. Floyd is in his own quarantine tank, with a small heater and lots of nice places for him to hide, as well as an air stone to oxygenate the water. Today will be his second dose of erythromycin and stress guard, and when I came to check on him this morning, he was way more colorful and lively, and zoomed right up to the front of the tank, so I would say he was just suffering from a bad case of fin rot, and the medicine is helping him feel better almost right away! He also seems to love his almond leaf, so I’ll definitely be adding small ones to his home tank once his treatment is complete. 🙂

Thank you! I’m going to run to my LFS today to grab some medicine for him, as well as some almond leaves 🙂

My beautiful half moon betta, Floyd, isn’t doing so well. In the last 4 days, he’s slowed down considerably, isn’t as interested in eating, and wants to just lay in his rock house. He goes up for air still, but then just sinks down and sits on the substrate or nestled in some hair grass. I looked for any signs of fungus or ick and couldn’t spot any, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have an internal parasite or something. I haven’t started any treatment yet, as I wanted to ask if anyone had any advice or recommendations on what to do or what could be wrong, before I spend money on medication. I do at least a 20% water change each sunday, I feed him a good variety of foods, his parameters are good, he has an airstone to keep the water moving and oxygenated, and his water is sitting at about 78 degrees which is plenty warm. He doesn’t have any aggressive tank mates that might be attacking him, just two small mystery snails and three amano shrimp. His color has also dulled recently. The only visible difference I’ve noticed is one side of his gills isn’t expanding as they should. I’ll leave a video below. Any ideas on what could be causing that? He may just be getting older, as he’s hitting the 3 year mark soon, but I don’t want him to be in discomfort or pain in his final days if that is the case… Ok it wouldn’t let me add a video, so I inserted a picture instead. As you can see on Floyds right side, his gill is expanding properly when he breathes in, but the left side has almost no movement at all.

I apologized to him with some blanched zucchini, and a new home in my new 75 gallon tank 😂

Ok, I’m betting the wonder shell and too much gH and kH preventing them from molting was probably the main issue. @Chick-In-Of-TheSea also said that it’s possible that I was changing too much water, as shrimp are sensitive to too much change, and I was doing about a 50% water change every other week, so that could be a cause as well. I’ll definitely have a look at that shrimp info thread that you linked. I appreciate the help, and I’ll definitely implement those changes to hopefully have better luck with cherries in the future!

I use a sponge filter, my parameters are pretty stable and in healthy areas for shrimp, so my guess is it probably had something to do with the water changes. I usually change at least 50% of the water. I wasn’t aware that shrimp were so sensitive to water changes! I’m going to definitely be more car about that in the future, thank you!

Thank you!!

I had the shrimp for about 5 weeks before they started to disappear. The tank is about 8 weeks old, so pretty fresh. I feed Hikari mini algae pellets every few days, and occasionally blanched cucumber as a treat. I can’t remember what my tank parameters are exactly, but I tested this morning and they’re in a safe range, and around what they usually are. Zero chlorine, zero nitrite, barely any nitrate, zero ammonia, and liquid rock in regards to hardness. I have pretty hard water where I live anyway, and I do add wonder shells to clear the water and add more calcium to the tank, but I haven’t ever had problems with the water being too hard to the point it kills things, especially because harder water is great for shrimp and snails. So who knows? It’s possible that they’re just dying off slowly from a disease, but I’ve looked for any signs of infection, parasites, or diseases, and I couldn’t see any, plus my LFS does a thorough quarantine process before releasing any fish for sale, and I’ve always had good luck with their shrimp in other tanks without David the possible killer snail. And it just confuses me why I didn’t see any dead shrimp after they began to disappear? Unless the snail was eating them after they died? Anyway, hope that gave you any additional info you needed to maybe help solve this mystery? And thank you for the input!

Woohoo baby angels!! As everyone else is saying, yes, please post some pictures!

Well folks, I think I have a silent murderer on my hands. I had a group of cherry shrimp, 4 to be exact, in a planted 2.5 gallon tank, with a nerite and 2 mystery snails. I slowly started noticing my cherry shrimp disappearing, and now I’m down to only one! I looked for a body to scoop out when I noticed one was missing initially, but couldn’t find one. I moved things around and still nothing. I thought maybe it had escaped out of the tank as shrimp sometimes do, but I have a pretty tight lid on the tank with no gaps it could’ve crawled out of, so I ruled that theory out pretty quickly. A few days go by, and another one went missing! I went through the same process as before, look for a body, make sure the tank lid had been on properly that night, etc. Still nothing. Now I know this might sound crazy, but my mid size gold mystery snail, David, moves pretty quickly, and I can only assume he ate them somehow? I had seen him sneak up on my shrimp before and and try to glide over them, but never try to take a bite of one. My nerite is slow and keeps to himself, and my other mystery snail minds his own business and likes to hang out under his favorite little rock, so I ruled them out as possible suspects as well. I know shrimp can be quite vulnerable and a bit slower when molting, so maybe he got them then? Has anyone had this happen before or knows anything about mystery snails munching on helpless cherry shrimp? Any answers or theories would be much appreciated! Here is the culprit: