Would like some second opinions (bettas and corydora)

[KatGoneFishing]

On 10/18/2022 at 4:40 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

Sandpaper, fine grit should help if you need to smooth it out. I've never had one, but even on 3d printed things, rocks, etc. That's one thing a lot of people don't do and is critical for some fish species.

Yeah, I think I ran my fingers over it for any noticeable sharp bits when I first got it, but it's been about three months now since I bought it, so I can't remember. I'll check it over and take some sandpaper to it if needed. I tried to be pretty aware of whether or not any purchased decorations had sharp bits on them - so many didn't have filed down seams or were just rough to the touch, even on things that were supposed to be smooth objects. I think I only have...four non-natural decorations between all the tanks, plus a few silk plants.

On 10/18/2022 at 4:40 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

What was the tank on the temp? Sorry about asking again, you may have already answered. I know you have several fish in several tanks and all of them with some issues, I just wanted to confirm that variable for what you're trying to keep them at temp wise.  You mentioned a heater is on the way too.

Oh, no worries! The 10 gallon that I had this betta in originally with the ember tetras is set at 77F with a 100W ACO heater. There didn't seem to be any issues with energy or overexertion during the two months that he was in there, at least not that I noticed. The 5 gallon hospital tank that he's in currently has a preset Fluval heater that is supposed to hold temp between 76-78F (I think it's actually the same one that ACO sells on the website, which was coincidence lol). It is instead bringing temp up to 83F if left to run. So I've got a 50W ACO heater on the way to get the temp stabilized and less of a stressor and I'm actually same state as ACO, so it should be here quick. I keep the house in the 73-75F range, so ambient temp isn't absolutely frigid in the meantime. I have a thermometer in the 5gal now and I've managed to keep it in the 75F-ish range the last day or so since realizing the issue with the preset heater.

[nabokovfan87]

That's unfortunate. It's so frustrating when you try to find an "easy" heater solution and it just never seems to work well.  The last one I had one my 10G was at least 15-20 degrees off and wouldn't let me adjust cool enough!  It is sometimes difficult to notice heater issues, which definitely is frustrating.

Hopefully with salt, bacterial meds, quality heating, and steady water quality that a lot of these things clear up.

[Odd Duck]

I think between @nabokovfan87and @Colu, they’ve gotten most everything covered, any betta tank should be at least 78-80 ideally, especially when sick.  They certainly will tolerate it lower, but will usually do better long term at their optimal temp.  Pristine water is always your best friend for sick fish, no matter the cause.

just a couple further thoughts for you.  A bit of aquarium salt at the low end dose shouldn’t bother 99% of plants or fish as long as you keep it at one tablespoon per 10 gallons.  Most fish can easily tolerate one tablespoon per 5 gallons but that is more likely to start bothering some live plants.  I’m not seeing anything that says you need to go over the low dose at this point.

Daphnia can act as roughage for carnivores and still have enough protein for bettas.  Don’t bother with peas, these can cause more problems for bettas than they would solve since their digestive system is not made to handle vegetables.

[KatGoneFishing]

On 10/18/2022 at 7:24 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

That's unfortunate. It's so frustrating when you try to find an "easy" heater solution and it just never seems to work well.  The last one I had one my 10G was at least 15-20 degrees off and wouldn't let me adjust cool enough!  It is sometimes difficult to notice heater issues, which definitely is frustrating.

Hopefully with salt, bacterial meds, quality heating, and steady water quality that a lot of these things clear up.

Oh man, that would be rough. this is only like, four degrees off from where I want it and it's still frustrating. And on top of everything else, too, ugh.

I'm really hoping so, I'd like to go back to enjoying my fish and not worrying about them so much.

On 10/18/2022 at 7:29 PM, Odd Duck said:

just a couple further thoughts for you.  A bit of aquarium salt at the low end dose shouldn’t bother 99% of plants or fish as long as you keep it at one tablespoon per 10 gallons.  Most fish can easily tolerate one tablespoon per 5 gallons but that is more likely to start bothering some live plants.  I’m not seeing anything that says you need to go over the low dose at this point.

Daphnia can act as roughage for carnivores and still have enough protein for bettas.  Don’t bother with peas, these can cause more problems for bettas than they would solve since their digestive system is not made to handle vegetables.

Oh, good to know for the salt dosage, thank you! And I do have frozen daphnia on hand, I'll give that a go in a couple days when I feed him again.

And I was considering bumping the 10gal temp up, too, so I'll probably do that, too.

[KatGoneFishing]

On 10/17/2022 at 9:41 PM, KatGoneFishing said:

The previous tankmates, the ember tetras, are active and healthy-seeming, no sign of a transmissible disease that lingered in that tank so far, at least.

I spoke too soon, sigh. Little fluffy white bit on one of the tetras this morning. Guess I'm getting a full crash course in fish illness and medication this week, lol. I just hope the white clouds don't also sprout something in the next couple weeks.

[nabokovfan87]

On 10/19/2022 at 11:59 AM, KatGoneFishing said:

I spoke too soon, sigh. Little fluffy white bit on one of the tetras this morning. Guess I'm getting a full crash course in fish illness and medication this week, lol. I just hope the white clouds don't also sprout something in the next couple weeks.

It could be a secondary fungal issue.  Pretty much any tank in question with illness, you would be safe to add ich-X and treat accordingly.  Re-dose after a water change until you're comfortable with the status of all the fish and have treated things effectively.  Normally you're talking about 1 week of treatment and ~4+ doses for something bad.  For minor issues, you can probably do 2-3 treatments over ~2 weeks.

[KatGoneFishing]

Yeah, that's kind of what I was thinking. It doesn't look bad at all yet, just a small bit on one fish, so hopefully won't take much to clear that up.

[KatGoneFishing]

Everyone in the 20gal has survive the first day of Expel-P, at least. Prazipro has been dosed, so now we see how that shakes out. I'm sure the honey gourami are very confused as to why they haven't been fed for the last day or so. Almost sucked up a shrimp while doing the water change today, though, oops.

I'll do a second dose of Ich-X on the tetras tomorrow. It was really interesting to see how the blue spread through the water, tbh. They're at least in good spirits, still very food-motivated, and after how shy they were (and occasionally still are) it's very gratifying to see them more relaxed and willing to come beg for food rather than just watch it from a distance because I was too close to the tank.

Teal'c has continued to hang out behind the heater, but will come up and does his absolute best to greet me and beg for food, so I'm hoping he'll be very happy to get fed tomorrow. Frozen daphnia, which will actually be a first for him with me. I know the minnows will be absolutely over the moon to eat up the rest of the cube and I might try some with the other betta, see how he likes them. I should be able to swap out the heater tomorrow, as well, give Teal'c a nice, steady temp that's comfortable for him. The salt is taking a bit longer to arrive, though I'm hoping it comes sooner than the tracking says it will.

[KatGoneFishing]

Day 2 of parasite meds survived! Everyone is alive and accounted for, even the shrimp (well, at least one as of five minute ago, I am eternally unsure of the actual number of living shrimp in that tank). The cories are rather displeased about it all, only one or two up and swimming at any given point. And the honeys are I think just confused and unsure overall. It will be nice to come out the other side of this and hopefully have a healthy, happy tank again.

The fuzzy bits on the tetra are persistent, so they might get a few rounds of Ich-X, we'll see how it goes.

The daphnia was absolutely a hit with the betta, he was very hungry and snapped them up as best he could. So I'm feeling a bit optimistic about his appetite, at least. He's still swimming wonky, as if it's a great effort and his back end sinks as soon as he stops concentrating on going forward. He's resting on the bottom pretty much any time he's not coming over to say hi and look to see if I'm feeding him. Visually, I think his scales are looking better than they were, but he's definitely not out of the woods yet. He is also looking a bit skinny, but I'm not sure how much of that is true and how much is just me being a helicopter mom. I did decide to do a round of Maracyn while I wait for the aquarium salt to arrive, so he's had a round of Paracleanse and a round of Maracyn all told. Currently not sure if I should do a second round of something or just wait for the salt and see how that goes. The ACO heater arrived, so that's been swapped out and set to 79F, so we won't have fluctuating temperature on top of everything else going on.

      

 

In silver-lining news, though, I spotted 3-4 white cloud fry in the kitchen tank that are about a half centimeter big and entirely too cute for their own good. I'm pretty sure they've made it longer than the first set did, already, and I'm a bit better prepared for fry in general now, so hopefully I won't lose this batch.

Never a dull day with fish around, apparently.

[KatGoneFishing]

I think I may never try another heater that isn't ACO, ahaha. The 50W works a dream after the Fluval hiccup. Holding steady at 79F and Teal'c seems to be a bit more alert and energetic, which is great to see. He's taken to resting under the sponge filter now that the Fluval heater isn't there for him to wedge himself behind and I'm thinking about picking up a pleco cave or something for him to hang out in that will also block some of the water movement. Absolutely great appetite today when I gave him more daphnia, though, he put a lot of effort into chasing them down and even started recognizing the pipette that I was using and would grab a drop of daphnia from the tip of it. He's still not swimming well, it takes him a lot of effort to move around and he sinks and flops over very readily, but the will is there and I can only hope that I can help him turn things around and get him back to full health. Salt is still showing for Tuesday delivery.

(I tried the daphnia with my other betta, he just looked at me like "where's the food???" so I think we'll stick to pellets with him for now, lmao. The snails in there will feast well today. The minnows and tetras love the daphnia, though, it's the perfect size for them. And the Hikari First Bites are the perfect size for the WC fry.)

[KatGoneFishing]

Really great news with Teal'c, a lot of his swimming issues have decreased or gone away, he is much more active and alert than he had been, swimming around the tank even when I'm not right in front of it. The steady, high temperature and some roughage with the daphnia have apparently worked wonders, even without the salt (which is supposed to arrive today, though the tracking doesn't update very well, so I'm not very confident in this). He does still trend towards vertical a bit when he's not in motion and there's a bit of resting on the bottom, but it's much less pronounced and a bit more normal looking, so I have high hopes for that resolving, as well.

All that said, we're back to something that I don't know enough about to know whether it's normal or something to be worried about; his discolored scales. At the moment, in dim lighting, he looks fantastic, but when I get a light on him, he looks...dirty is a good word for it, I guess? There are some scales and patches of discoloration along his body and into his fins and it's almost like he's got specks of dirt on him, in a way. His color is not solid and totally vibrant the way I'd assume a totally healthy fish would be. He's had some discoloration since I got him, mostly the very pale scales and spots on his fins, but the darker patches are newer. Got a nice bright light on the tank and managed to get a couple of pictures. I haven't seen him flashing or anything yet, so I don't think it's actually bothering him at the moment, but it doesn't seem normal to me.

     

Edited October 25, 2022 by KatGoneFishing
spelling is hard

[nabokovfan87]

@xXInkedPhoenixX what do you think?  You have a ton of experience with the bettas compared to me!

[xXInkedPhoenixX]

@nabokovfan87 haha maybe compared to you but not likely compared to others- I'm just getting a crash course. @KatGoneFishing just going on your last post if he's newer may have a swim bladder issue as you may have guessed just on behavior. The scales look ok to me, just discolored here and there but it's the whole scale so that might just be his coloring and that may change as he gets healthier. I would definitely do the salt in his tank when it gets in to help. You could consider fasting him for a day or 2 to see if it's only his swim bladder that's the issue- after that consider Epsom salt soaks for 10 or 15 mins a day for a few days. Unless there's some symptoms I'm missing from other posts that's the direction I'd go, besides making sure his water is very very clean and warm (add IAL if possible)

Edited October 25, 2022 by xXInkedPhoenixX

[KatGoneFishing]

On 10/25/2022 at 3:39 PM, xXInkedPhoenixX said:

The scales look ok to me, just discolored here and there but it's the whole scale so that might just be his coloring and that may change as he gets healthier.

Yeah, the fact that the pale spots were the whole scale was why I hadn't been worried about them at the beginning, but the black markings down his side are newer and thus slightly more concerning, since from some angles it almost looks fuzzy? But looking closer at my second photo, it might just be scale pigment changing, since each scale seems to have a darker dot in it. The splotchiness of the fins is probably the oddest part to me, since I've never seen it before. I'll keep an eye on it and we'll see how it goes.

On 10/25/2022 at 3:39 PM, xXInkedPhoenixX said:

... just going on your last post if he's newer may have a swim bladder issue as you may have guessed just on behavior.

I would definitely do the salt in his tank when it gets in to help. You could consider fasting him for a day or 2 to see if it's only his swim bladder that's the issue- after that consider Epsom salt soaks for 10 or 15 mins a day for a few days. Unless there's some symptoms I'm missing from other posts that's the direction I'd go, besides making sure his water is very very clean and warm (add IAL if possible)

I've had him about two months, now, and all of this is fairly recent developments in the last...two weeks or so. The original issue was flashing, which got him a move into the hospital tank and a round of paracleanse, followed by a pretty quick turn to going vertical when not putting in a lot of effort and a fair bit of lethargy. Part of that was probably the heater (preset heater that I'd gotten for the tank was too hot, which resulted in fairly low average temps while I got a replacement from ACO), but he's had consistently warm temps in there since Friday and that seems to have helped the energy levels over the last few days. I haven't seen flashing since, at least, so the only lingering issue is the swimming.

The salt is definitely still on the menu when it arrives, since the tilting hasn't entirely cleared up. I did fast him for a few days last week, then have been feeding mostly frozen daphnia with a few pellets since about Saturday to give him some roughage, and there has already been a lot of improvement in that area.  I'll toss in an almond leaf and add salt when it arrives, see how that goes. I'll see if I can find good epsom salt locally, too, just in case, though hopefully I won't end up needing it.

Thank you so much for the input!

[xXInkedPhoenixX]

Wow! What an ordeal for the poor little one. I'd think about too, if the heat was high for long there was an oxygen issue for sure don't know how that would effect an air breather but I imagine it would do something- also with hotter water comes more bacterial growth- which is why Bettas are prone to bacterial infections because they like 80-82 degrees optimally. If it's bacterial the salt will help but if it doesn't get better might have to consider a bacterial med at some poing. At least now the now steady environment is a good thing. 

Edited October 26, 2022 by xXInkedPhoenixX

[KatGoneFishing]

@xXInkedPhoenixX The preset heater was used for probably about a week before I realized the issue, then another week of fluctuating/a-bit-low-for-a-betta temps before I got the new heater and it's been stable since Friday. But I do have a sponge filter with airstone running and the temp didn't actually get above 83F-ish (it was more a concern because the heater was supposed to maintain 76-78), so at least the water was kept moving for gas exchange. I did give him a bit of Maracyn last week, though I realized today that I got the instructions mixed up with the Paracleanse and did not actually do a full run of the Maracyn. But that will hopefully have helped a little if anything did start up because of the warmer temp. With any luck, salt and the IAL will be enough to resolve the rest and he'll be good to go again.

[xXInkedPhoenixX]

Good luck!!

[KatGoneFishing]

Betta update: if you saw this fish swimming today, you would not believe that he was having issues staying horizontal just three days ago. He's acting completely normal again. I'm still going to do some salt and IAL for a bit, see if the scale thing clarifies one way or another, but the swimming seems to be resolved, which is a huge relief.

 

Cory update: I lost one of them last night, woke up to find snails climbing over him and zero response when I went in with the net, so that's unfortunate. The surprise was that it wasn't the original skinny one or the other one that started looking skinny, it was one of the other two with damaged fins, but no other issues that I could see. So maybe he had something else going on. The others are still with me, at least. I'll be starting week two of the meds tomorrow. I forgot the second dose of prazipro this last week, so it was just one dose each of expel p and prazipro, but we should get it in full this coming week.

Operation Snail Removal has gone well so far, too. I think I've managed to remove a decent chunk of them and I'm just going to set up a nice little tank to keep them in, because I've got some lovely gold and blue ramshorns being produced that I'd like to pursue a bit and the local puffer folks post relatively frequently looking for feeder snails. So hopefully I'll be able to keep on top of snail population and give the cories a fighting chance at getting food, as well.

[nabokovfan87]

The Corys should do well with the same treatment the Bettas are getting, they like tannins, they do fine with salt for illness, enjoy added air, and so on.

Hopefully there's an explanation or improvement soon for your group. Make sure they are eating also to try to push out the parasites.  When you do feed them just keep an eye out and see if one of them doesn't.

[KatGoneFishing]

Yeah, I think generally getting them food is the hardest part right now, with the way the snails mob the wafer bits. They all seem to react well to food being present, at least, getting all excited and doing their best to triangulate the food's position, they just get crowded out by the snails after a little bit. I'm going to try pulling more snails as we go, too, to help that part of it. I'll keep an eye out tomorrow when I feed, see how they're doing with it.

I might drop a second airstone in the tank at least for a little while, make sure that's doing all right with the meds in the water and all. I have the sponge filter/airstone combo already, but it's a larger tank than my others and couldn't hurt.

[KatGoneFishing]

Been a while, kept forgetting to update. Mixed news, but mostly good.

I did end up losing a second cory, again very much not sure why because it was one of the middling ones with not much apparently wrong beyond some fin loss. So I'm down to four now and honestly, not sure if I'll try to get the group back to 6 or more or not. Might depend a bit on how other tanks/future plans pan out.

But the others seem to be on the mend! Of the four remaining, two are big and healthy, active and doing great, the very picture of corydoras health. The other two are still smaller, one fairly significantly so - given everything, I'd be somewhat surprised if they get as big as the other two, but hopefully the littlest one puts on a bit of size - but I'm seeing full bellies and a lot of fin regrowth, they're active and not hiding anymore, and those dorsal fins are sitting tall, not clamped down the way they were for a while. So I'm very optimistic with them and I expect to see them continue to recover.

The shrimp in that tank have started showing up with fuzzy white growth on their faces, so that's a new issue, but at least it's not further complications with the cories, lol.

My teal betta is still hanging in there. He was doing much better for a bit, but we're back to lethargy and clamped fins, though his appetite is still great, so I'll keep working on that. There's nothing like fungus or fin rot or something to give me a clear indication of what's wrong, so it might be a bit trial and error to see what's happening. We'll see how it goes.