Stephanie K

@Zac thanks for your input! I’ve had it by itself for about a week and it still looks the same. Hopefully it’s nothing. @Chick-In-Of-TheSea I don’t think it could be snails. The packaging on the Top Fin plants from PetSmart says “snail free.” They look more like root nodes on house plants? @lefty o thanks for the advice. I’ll rinse it a bit better again and keep an eye on it. 🤞🏼

Hi everyone! We bought a larger Anubias from PetSmart and admittedly had it sitting around for a couple of weeks before I had the chance to take it out of the container it comes in. We removed it from the gel and packaging (it’s currently submerged in water by itself) and I noticed these brown bumps around the bottom. There were a couple higher up on the stems but I cut the leaf off. Does anyone know if these are just root nodes? Thanks, all!

@Colu @nabokovfan87 thank you both again for your help. Heartbroken to say our little guy passed away this evening. We appreciate your support through this difficult time

@Colu will do, thank you again to you and @nabokovfan87 As of tonight he’s on his side a bit more, breathing pretty hard. He still ate but barely wanted to. Will keep trying.

@Colu got it, will continue the Maracyn feedings until the Metroplex arrives. If we do end up needing to feed medicated food for three weeks, is it ok to stick to frozen brine shrimp? We will also add another tablespoon of salt back in after our water change today.

@nabokovfan87 their usual food is NorthFin pellets (they would get frozen foods two days a week and I would fast them for one day) But since we’ve been medicating I’ve been using frozen brine shrimp. He’s been eating two small meals twice a day, but I do have to feed him with tweezers. @Colu I just ordered some Metroplex but unfortunately it won’t be here until Wednesday. Should I continue feeding the Maracyn food until then? We do have a few live plants in our tank. Do you think catching him for salt baths would put more stress on his body? We only have a few plants in our tank now so if you think it would be better to leave him where he is, we can take the plants out or just sacrifice them. We have another tank but I wouldn’t want to cross contaminate anything. We are also due for a water change today. Since we added one table spoon initially, did maybe a 25% water change a week later, and then added in two teaspoons; do you think it would be safe to add 2 tablespoons after the water change today? Is that amount of Salt still safe for our Nerite? Lastly, what do you both think about dosing the tank with medication vs. feeding medicated food? Is feeding generally more effective? My main concern would be if it would take more oxygen out of the water since he’s breathing hard, but maybe at this point that’s more from his infection than the amount of oxygen in the water.

@nabokovfan87 thanks so much for your quick reply. We added 1 tablespoon a couple of weeks ago. Did a partial water change, about 25%, then added 2 teaspoons back since then. The tank is 5 gallons.

@Colu @nabokovfan87 hi, again, an update on our betta: I noticed pineconing this evening when I went to feed his second dose of Maracyn food. I know this is Dropsy and a symptom of something serious internally. I’ve seen people talk about a lot of different methods but given his current treatment history, is there anything I can do to make him more comfortable?

@nabokovfan87 @Colu thank you both so much for your help! We now have a second air stone in there in addition to the one in our sponge filter. He’s still breathing a bit hard but he does seem a little better. We checked our parameters yesterday and all still seemed ok. We will finish up his week of medicated frozen food with Maracyn. Hoping to have a better update by next week. And since this is our first sick fish (obviously we are new to the hobby), we really appreciate you getting us on the right treatment paths!

@Colu @nabokovfan87 thank you! I do have some extra air stones so I will add another one in. @nabokovfan87 just curious, do you happen to know how long it can take for an air stone to begin improving the oxygen in the water?

@Colu thank you, he’s struggling today but we will increase the maracyn dose accordingly in his food tonight. We really appreciate your guidance with this.

@Colu Got it. We’ve added another teaspoon of salt to his tank and will continue feeding the medicated food. Is it ok to use a quarter packet even though we’re using less food?

@Colu thanks so much for your reply! We have Maracyn so we will start that treatment today. When I mix the medication with frozen food, I am using about 1 teaspoon of defrosted food total since we are making him new food every 24 hours and going through it pretty quick. I try to dose the medication accordingly (about 1/3 of the recommended amount since we are not using a full tablespoon of food). Do you think this can still be effective? Since we introduced 1 tablespoon of salt last week then did almost a 30% water change, we only dosed 1 teaspoon to replace the salt we removed. Do you think we should add another teaspoon?

Water Parameters: Ammonia: 0 ppm Nitrite: 0 ppm Nitrate: 10-15 ppm Kh: 80 ppm Ph: 7.2 Temp: 79-80 degrees 5 gallon One betta One nerite snail Live plants Hi everyone, First, thank you to those who has helped us with our little guy so far. We are grateful to be able to learn from you all here. Well, we are hoping someone can help us again. Our betta came down with fin rot a few weeks ago which we think lead to an internal bacteria infection, causing some bloat. We’ve had this tank running for a little over a year now, but we are still pretty new to the hobby and this is our first sick fish. For the first week of treatment, we dosed Maracyn and Ich-X. After that first week, we did a 20% water change and then dosed one tablespoon of aquarium salt to our tank (for 5 gallons). We added an air stone because he had some labored breathing. We fed him frozen brine shrimp mixed with focus, Kanaplex and garlic guard for the following week (2 small feedings twice per day, thank you to @Colu for the wonderful guidance through this treatment). And after that he seemed to be doing better. His fins seem to be healing and he was even swimming to the surface to eat the pellets we slowly began introducing back to his diet (2 pellets in the morning, 1 at night). His breathing was easier, too. We did another 20% water change on Monday and this was going to be his first week with no medication in the tank (except what was left of the aquarium salt after the water change). But since yesterday he has been laying on the floor of the tank, and he seemed to be breathing hard again. I’m not sure if we messed things up with the water change, but I wanted to be sure his tank stayed clean since he’s still recovering. We turned up his air stone a bit and added a teaspoon of aquarium salt back to the tank today. He has been eating but losing color again. From certain angles it looks like his scales could be sticking up a bit, but most of the time he looks normal. We also noticed the spot on his gill in the photo just today. Would it be ok to do another week of Kanaplex feedings? Or does anyone have other suggestions? We don’t want to be too aggressive with treatments and make things worse, but we also don’t want him to be uncomfortable. We’d appreciate any advice anyone might have!

@FlyingFishKeeper sounds good, thank you again for your advice! Our brine shrimp and set up should be arriving today (pipette included) so I’ll work on getting those to him ASAP. Keeping my fingers crossed and hoping I have some better updates on him by the end of the week.