Zesul

Treatment for my betta is going well he is way more active and swimming around the tank. Still pretty uncoordinated when trying to eat food but with help he gets it eventually. My concern now (since they never seem to end with this fish) his right gill has started to stick out slightly and I can't see him breathing (no visible movement) with it so I'm not sure if its working don't know if he has something stuck under it or something else. His other gill appears perfectly fine and I don't see any labored breathing or him going up to the surface for air a lot.

He's been on the treatment for about 3 days and it's been a huge improvement he is way more active and actually uses his tail fins to swim instead of just his pectoral fins. He still tends to start floating vertical if he is moving up and stop using his fins and has a harder time grabbing food but this is the closest he been to his usual self in over a month so I'm super happy. Going to continue the treat for at least 2 weeks and see how he is then. Thank you everyone for your advice I'll keep you posted.

@Colu Ok got the medication and fed him his first dose he has a harder time taking pellets now cuz he seems uncoordinated but the enthusiasm is there so he gets it eventually ( with a little help). He seems a little more alert today which is good hoping that Epsom salt soak helped him a little.

@Colu I've heard of that before but never seen it in person thanks so much I'm going to call my lfs and ask if they have any metroplex so I don't have to wait on shipping hopefully he can hold out until I can start him on treatment.

Another thing that's really concerning me is the scale lose on his head has gotten worse ( picture of him facing left is when he was healthy and the other two are him now) and I'm not sure if it's another disease or injury should I put him back in the quarantine tank and treat with aquarium salt and melafix?

@xXInkedPhoenixX Yeah he seems even more out of it since the bath only really moving around when I come up to the tank to see him, so I'm nervous to try another bath.

@Colu First Epsom salt bath went well ( I measured everything out to make sure I got the dose right) until I put him back in the tank he kinda sunk to the bottom and was unresponsive for about a minute or so besides him breathing. He has moved around a little bit since ( it's only been about 10 minutes since I put him back) so I'm not sure if it was just mild shock from being moved a lot or a bad reaction to the salt. Would it still be ok to proceed with daily salt baths and if so how long should I be giving them to him?

@Colu Guess I'll have to go to my fish store and stock up on a few gallons of RO water 😄 thanks again for the advice

@BAT I'm sorry to hear you are having the same issue I'll be sure to let you know if anything I try helps. @Colu Thank you for the advice about the Excel I'll be lowering my dosage and as for the Epsom salt I've been a little nervous about using it. Should I put a heater in the Epsom salt bath so I don't shock him with the different temp ( I have to use RO water from my fish store cuz my tap water isn't good for aquariums) and would it be ok to use that same salt bath for multiple days or should I mix it fresh every time?

I first noticed my betta start to swim funny a little over 3 weeks ago then he took a drastic turn right after I noticed it and started spinning every time he was trying to swim. It took me a while to set up a quarantine tank for him so it wasn't ready till the next day and I thought he was close to death at that point he kept trying to swim and it lead to him corkscrewing until he had completely exhausted himself and I thought he was just going to die from that and stress. I finally got him in the sick tank with aquarium salts and anti -bacterial. I than fasted him for 3 days trying to clear his system I was fully prepared to have him not eat on the 4th day and that was going to be my indication to humanely euthanize him, but I was so happy when he ate (I've been feeding freeze dried daphnia). He got more active when it was feeding time but mostly stayed behind his heater for hours. After about 3 weeks of no more real improvement I decided to put him back in his tank (he seemed to hate the quarantine tank since it was empty besides the equipment). He moved around more but still was not his active self lying down for hours on end and sometimes in weird positions. He still swims slightly sideways and he is very floaty seeming to float upwards on his tail end so a lot of the times he'll end up vertical. He barely uses his tail fins to swim anymore mostly just using his pectoral fins to due everything. When he goes up to gulp air I've noticed instead of the one time he usually gulps he'll take 2 and the air seems to push right out of his gills as he gulps it which never happened before. Another thing is all throughout quarantine he never pooped a lot maybe once every couple days so I'm not sure if he's really clearing his system. The last thing that's really worrying me is I've noticed he has started to lose scales on his head and I have no idea what's causing it. Please anyone who has more experience dealing with sick bettas I could really use some help. There might be and underlying cause with my cycle but I don't know what's causing it nothing I look up helps, I can't seem to get my nitrites down. I have 0ppm ammonia and 5.0ppm nitrates but .25ppm nitrite. Here's everything I add to my tank Easy green fertilizer, Flourish excel, Fritz Zyme trace elements, and a wonder shell once a month for my snail. The Excel and wonder shell are the most recent additions so I'm not sure if they are the ones breaking my cycling. Last water change I added more beneficial bacteria to try and help the cycle.

Sorry took awhile to respond I tested the water straight from the tap after running it a bit and it looks like its still reading about .25ppm. So I'm going to hold off on shrimp for now I was told by the employee at my local fish store that I could keep fish though is that true wouldn't the copper also effect them eventually?

That's just the copper reading I got from the tank water. We have copper water pipes got an old house.

Ok I have an update and unfortunately its not the best news. The shrimp did not handle a longer acclimation well after about 4 hours of drip I started to put them in a bag for temp acclimation and I saw that they started to go limp. So I decided to call it and go to the fish store I'm not sure if any were alive when I made it there but the employee started to acclimate them back to their water so I'm just hoping they live (I feel bad for putting them through so much). I had some suspicion so I picked up a copper test kit and when I got back my water test for about .25-.50 ppm copper so I'm assuming that is what killed them so quickly. I'm just taking a step back and reevaluating. This definitely blind sided I thought I had been so thorough with my research but I guess they are right experience is the best teacher. Going to take some time before coming back to the problem cuz I'm just feeling a little too discouraged right now. Thank you to everyone for the advice it really helped me problem shoot this.

thank you so much I want to see if I can make it work with these guys first this has been a huge learning experience for me. I'll definitely keep that in mind though I really appreciate it.

So four of the six shrimp I pulled out are still alive and the nerite snail is doing better I took out the bodies and the poop from the snail to keep the water good while I wait for the store to open. I'm going to get some RO water and do a 50:50 cut with my tap water to reduce the pH then drip acclimate for about 4-5 hours just to be safe and then put them in a bag to do a temp acclimate ( can you tell I'm paranoid yet ). I just want to do my best to keep these remaining guys alive any additional advice on what I should do is appreciated.

I pulled what I thought were dead shrimp out of my tank cuz they were all on their backs not moving. I put them back in the plastic bin I acclimated them in and after a couple hours some on them started moving again. I'm not sure what to do with them now as it's 12:00 am here and all stores are closed. Should I try to acclimate them again but for way longer or just hope they survive the night and bring them back to the store in the morning. I took out the nerite and blue velvet cuz they also started to do badly not sure if they will make it.

Thanks I'm not quite sure what to do with the nerite snail and blue velvet shrimp that are still alive for now I think I'll just have to see if they are still alive by tomorrow was thinking of taking them back while I sort out how much RO water to add. Worried the nerite snail is going to climb out of the tank trying to get out of the water it doesn't like.

They said their pH was about 7.2 so pretty big difference to my 8.4. My parameters are 0ppm ammonia, 0ppm nitrite, and 10ppm nitrate. They sell large jugs of RO water at the store so I'm thinking that my only shot at this point. Still very disappointing and I feel really bad about the shrimp.

The rest of them have died only took another 20 minutes the only thing left in the tank is the nerite snail and the one blue velvet that they gave me as an extra not sure if that one will be dead soon too. I already took all the bodies out of the tank so I don't get an ammonia spike. I probably should have drip acclimated for longer but when I asked at the store they said an hour would be good. I think I'm going to buy some RO water from the store and cut that with my tap water to try to lower my pH, but I don't know what else to do this has been a very sad experience.

Hey guys I need some help fast I finally got my cherry shrimp all my parameters were good no ammonia or nitrite so the only thing was my pH being really high at 8.4. I went to my local store to get them and I drip acclimated for over an hour before adding them in. I didn't see any signs of shock and they immediately started feeding on the algae I had in the tank so I thought everything is good. About and hour after adding them in some started swimming frantically in the tank and I just found one on its back twitching. I can only assume it's the drastically different pH. I'm not sure what to do now I'm heart broken that I can't do anything for them it's too late to take them back to the store as it's 45 minutes away and will close soon. Sorry I just need some advice and maybe a little encouragement this is really hard to watch not knowing how to help them and very discouraging as this is my first attempt at keeping them.

KH was 11 drops and GH was 10 drops.

Just tested my GH and KH for my aged tap water that I use for the tank. The KH was about 200ppm, the GH I have a harder time reading but I think its about 150 ppm. I'm still new to these tests so hopefully I read them right the GH color change is hard to see.

The water at my house is well water that has been softened so I'm not entirely sure what the water in my area is like and unfortunately the closest local fish store I have is about 30 minutes away. Would their water parameters still be close to mine?

On another forum everyone helped me figure out that it was just my tap water aging to high pH levels and not my substrate raising my pH. My question is to any shrimp keepers is will cherry shrimp be able to live at those levels or do I have to make changes. I don't know if I can afford to be buying gallons of distilled water for my weekly changes. Any advice would help. P.S. Tank is still cycling right now so sorry for the crazy algae bloom, but the plants are doing really well so I'm not too worried.

Thanks so much I'll ask around maybe start a new forum since we figured out the title of this one is wrong since it's not my substrate.