Help with Fin Rot

[Stephanie K]

Water Parameters:

- 5 gallon

- One betta, one nerite snail

- 79-80 degrees

- Ammonia: 0 ppm

- Nitrite: 0 ppm

- Nitrate: 0 ppm

- Buffer: about 80 ppm

- PH: about 6.8-7

 

Hi everyone,

My betta fish seems to have fin rot, but I’m not exactly sure how as we test our water weekly and offer him a varied diet. We did a water change last week and put some catappa leaves in, but it made the water cloudy so I removed them. 
 

He was still eating, but only being fed about once a day, and became a little bloated last week. I fasted him for a day and then we decided to medicate him for his fin rot (based on @Irene‘s video with Maracyn and Ich-X, dosed for the 5 gallon). So he will be fasting until Friday. 

He still seems a bit lethargic, but is still interested when you go up to the tank. 

I have a couple concerns I was hoping some of you could help us with:

1. Is it safe to fast him for 8 days if he’s had a light diet up until the fasting? He still seems a little bloated.  

2. Does anyone have an explanation as to why the water could’ve become cloudy after adding the catappa leaf? 

3. Our water parameters have been consistent, so I wasn’t sure what to change about his environment to help with his stress. Does anyone have a suggestion of anything else we can do for him? Is it best to just wait a week for the medicine to work?

 

Thank you all!

Stephanie

[FlyingFishKeeper]

Hi, hope you're betta's hanging on! Honestly, (and I don't have any science to back this up, so take it with a grain of salt), but 8 days might be pushing it a bit when he's not doing well. If you have access to them you could try feeding brine shrimp, or daphnia lightly after giving him maybe a day or two more as I've heard their exoskeletons help move the digestive system along. Some pictures might help people on here as well!

Relating to question 2, ACO has a really nice guide for water clarity issues that in my opinion is pretty comprehensive: https://www.aquariumcoop.com/blogs/aquarium/cloudy-fish-tank?_pos=1&_psq=clou&_ss=e&_v=1.0

For question 3, if things get bad, you could try lowering the water level (less work to swim to the surface for air), as well as covering the tank to keep moisture in for his labyrinth organ if it's not already. That being said, drastically making changes could cause more harm than good from stress from the changes, so take that into account as well.

Edited May 23, 2022 by FlyingFishKeeper

[nabokovfan87]

I would highly recommend having some test strips on hand to test your water. Here is some resources for you.

https://www.aquariumcoop.com/blogs/aquarium/fin-rot

https://www.aquariumcoop.com/blogs/aquarium/aquarium-salt-for-sick-fish

https://www.aquariumcoop.com/blogs/aquarium/quarantine-tank

[Stephanie K]

@FlyingFishKeeper thank you so much for your detailed reply! I’ll try to get some brine shrimp eggs. Do you think it’s ok to feed him even though @Irene advised fasting the fish for a week to keep the water clean? I definitely don’t want him getting too weak. 
 

@nabokovfan87 thank you for sharing those links! I’ll be looking into these today. 

[FlyingFishKeeper]

Hi, at least in my opinion, I would say that fairly light feedings with a pretty clean food would probably be alright, especially with the low nitrate levels you've mentioned (just don't go overboard).

One thing with bettas and baby brine is that (at least for my betta) a pipette really helps as they like to only pay attention to the shrimp when they can get a bunch of shrimp in a single bite. (so just slowly squeeze in a dense pipette of brine shrimp right in front of him, and he'll probably get the hang of it)

[Stephanie K]

@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.