Help with Betta! He's lost more than 50% of his fins in the last few weeks and appears to be ill

[robm74]

On 1/9/2022 at 8:40 AM, Colu said:

Yes it would I use a  bucket to do Epsom salt baths  swim bladder won't cause fin rot because he's been hanging at the surface a lot he probably got some trap air that putting pressure on the swim bladder the Epsom salt baths with help release the trapped air

Okay, I will try the Epsom salt bath in a bucket. But do you have any further thoughts or recommendations on the fins? I've attached photos here - may be a bit hard to see, but you can make out that they are pretty rotted away and the tail fin is sometimes clamped. What could be causing this? How do we get it to stop and rejuvenate?

The fish still is eating, is sometimes spitting out the pellets though and then we try again and then he keeps it down. 

Swimming wise, he tries to swim to the bottom of the tank sometimes but just kind of floating back up horizontally. Again, thank you!

[Colu]

most common causes of Fin rot are damage to the fins poor water quality and stress that causes a bacterial infection of the fins you  might want to treat with antibiotic treatment with a different active ingredient I would treat with aqua-cipro 500mg active ingredient is ciprofloxacin treat's gram negative and some gram positive bacterial it works to stop bacterial from replicating or repairing it's DNA so it may work against bacterial that don't respond other antibiotics

[robm74]

On 1/12/2022 at 10:30 AM, Colu said:

most common causes of Fin rot are damage to the fins poor water quality and stress that causes a bacterial infection of the fins you  might want to treat with antibiotic treatment with a different active ingredient I would treat with aqua-cipro 500mg active ingredient is ciprofloxacin treat's gram negative and some gram positive bacterial it works to stop bacterial from replicating or repairing it's DNA so it may work against bacterial that don't respond other antibiotics

Okay should I do the Epsom salt bath before getting into the Aqua Cipro or okay to do at same time?

I just tested the water: Nitrates and nitrites are 0, pH is 7.6 (this is how it's always been), ammonia looks to be 0.25 ppm - will do a 25% water change tomorrow.

[Colu]

Ammonia more toxic at higher pH the constant exposure to small amounts of ammonia could be the reason his fin aren't healing  if you have ammonia in your tap water you could fill  plastic bin with water add a small filter with seachems purigen and heater  a couple of days before a water change that the purigen will remove the ammonia you can use the two together it will be more stressful I would do  Epsom salt baths for 2 days and then start treating with aqua-cipro

Edited January 13, 2022 by Colu

[robm74]

On 1/12/2022 at 7:46 PM, Colu said:

Ammonia more toxic at higher pH the constant exposure to small amounts of ammonia could be the reason his fin aren't healing  if you have ammonia in your tap water you could fill  plastic bin with water add a small filter with seachems purigen and heater  a couple of days before a water change that the purigen will remove the ammonia you can use the two together it will be more stressful I would do  Epsom salt baths for 2 days and then start treating with aqua-cipro

Hello! So we have held off on the Epsom salt baths and the Aqua-Cipro, as we wanted to do a water change - about 25% - to see if anything stabilized.

Can you take a quick look at this: https://photos.app.goo.gl/L36VL5Yg87p1nfFu5

Excuse the off key birthday singing - today was Curly's 1st "Birthday" (we brought him home a year ago). 

He seems to still be wanting to eat and trying to be active, but still has trouble swimming and doesn't seem like the fins are getting better, but maybe no worse.

Would you still recommend the Epsom salt baths for two days followed by the Aqua-Cipro based on what you are seeing here? Thank you!

 

[BAT]

My fish had bad fin rot this past month and I ended up having good luck with antibiotics plus aquarium salt. Aquarium coop has a good article on it. When i got to 1 tbsp per gallon it really seemed to do the trick alongside the antibiotic.

[Colu]

On 1/24/2022 at 1:44 AM, robm74 said:

Hello! So we have held off on the Epsom salt baths and the Aqua-Cipro, as we wanted to do a water change - about 25% - to see if anything stabilized.

Can you take a quick look at this: https://photos.app.goo.gl/L36VL5Yg87p1nfFu5

Excuse the off key birthday singing - today was Curly's 1st "Birthday" (we brought him home a year ago). 

He seems to still be wanting to eat and trying to be active, but still has trouble swimming and doesn't seem like the fins are getting better, but maybe no worse.

Would you still recommend the Epsom salt baths for two days followed by the Aqua-Cipro based on what you are seeing here? Thank you!

 

Yes I would recommend using the treatment I recommended

[robm74]

On 1/23/2022 at 11:24 PM, Colu said:

Yes I would recommend using the treatment I recommended

Hi again,

I got the Aqua Cipro and Epsom salt ready to go.

For the Epsom salt, I recall you saying create a "hospital" tank filled with 1 tablespoon of Epsom salt, 2 gallons of water, 15 minutes a day. How many days should I do this for? 

As for Aqua Cipro, the directions on the bottle are a bit confusing. It says dissolve one tablet (for 2 gallons of water) in a bit of water. So I'm guessing if I have a 2 gallon hospital tank, I dissolve the tablet in a bowl of water, then pour that dissolved medicine solution into the 2 gallon hospital tank. Then, I take the fish out of his regular tank, and put him into the hospital tank for about an hour - and then put him back into his regular tank. Repeat this for 5-7 days, but not adding or changing the Aqua Cipro solution that's in the hospital tank, right?  The label also says to do "daily water changes" - I'm guessing that's on his regular tank after he swims in the Cipro tank, but how much water should I change?

And as you noted before, do the Epsom salt baths first, then do the Cipro, right? Thank you for clarifying all of this!

Rob

Edited February 13, 2022 by robm74

[Colu]

Pre-Dissolve the table's in a small amount of water then add  it to the   hospital tank leave your fish for one hour in the bath then do a 100%water change on the hospital every day and redose the ciprofloxacin every day for 5-7 days ciprofloxacin is a powerful medication that why you do 100% water change daily and redose the medication also I would treat with the aqua-cipro Frist after you have finished your Frist full course of treatment them I would do the Epsom salt baths @robm74

Edited February 13, 2022 by Colu

[robm74]

On 2/13/2022 at 5:15 PM, Colu said:

Pre-Dissolve the table's in a small amount of water then add  it to the   hospital tank leave your fish for one hour in the bath then do a 100%water change on the hospital every day and redose the ciprofloxacin every day for 5-7 days ciprofloxacin is a powerful medication that why you do 100% water change daily and redose the medication also I would treat with the aqua-cipro Frist after you have finished your Frist full course of treatment them I would do the Epsom salt baths @robm74

Hi again. So we just completed five days of the Aqua Cipro treatment as you indicated.  For the past two days, he has had some trouble eating - he ate a couple of Northfin Beta Bits but about 15 minutes later spit them back out.

Today he doesn't seem to want to eat at all. Not sure if the medicine is tiring him out.

See pictures below - you can see his head area is losing color.

Do you recommend continuing the Aqua Cipro for the last two days, totaling 7 days of treatment - and then do the Epsom Salt, or should we stop the Cipro for now at 5 days and go into the Epsom salt baths?

And for the Epsom salt baths, how much should we use and for how long should he be put in there for? Do we use the hospital tank and fill to 2 gallons?

Thanks!

-Rob

 

 

 

 

[Colu]

You can treat with cipro for 5-7 days if he's had 5 days of treatment I would give him a rest ciprofloxacin is a powerful antibiotic medication  I wouldn't do the Epsom salt baths I would just focus of getting him to eat you could try adding seachems garlic guard to his food to encourage him to eat also you could try  feeding frozen blood worms

Edited February 21, 2022 by Colu

[robm74]

On 2/21/2022 at 4:47 PM, Colu said:

You can treat with cipro for 5-7 days if he's had 5 days of treatment I would give him a rest ciprofloxacin is a powerful antibiotic medication  I wouldn't do the Epsom salt baths I would just focus of getting him to eat you could try adding seachems garlic guard to his food to encourage him to eat also you could try  feeding frozen blood worms

I stopped the Cipro after day 5 on Sunday but unfortunately, things seem to have gotten worse. Our son found him on his side at the bottom of the tank this morning, breathing heavily - which was very upsetting for him (see pictures)

I did a quick water test and found the ammonia slightly elevated, so very quickly changed out 50 percent of the water and changed the carbon filter.

This got him off the bottom of the tank and he's now hanging out at the top, right alongside the filter housing. 

Not sure how much time Curly has, or if we have done everything we can - he hasn't not been eating either.

Will try the Garlic Guard mixed up with his pellets to see if that helps. Think there's anything else we can try here?

 

[Colu]

That this point all you can do is try and get him to eat adding medication now will probably be to much for him to handle in his weaken state if you think he's suffering you can use clove oil to humanly euthanize