New betta fish acting erratic

[Tam]

Okay, I'll give it a shot. Hopefully he holds on until I can get the meds.

[Tam]

Just a little update, the meds arrived today and I dosed them right away, hoping for the best. Phthalo is still hanging on but he barely moves around at this point. I got him to eat two small pellets today but he spit out the third so I didn't give him any more than that. I looked up more about symptoms of parasites and actually think that could be the problem, hopefully it is and the treatment works. If that's the issue and he's been successfully treated @Colu do you know how long it should take for me to see any kind of improvement?

[Colu]

On 10/25/2023 at 1:42 AM, Tam said:

Just a little update, the meds arrived today and I dosed them right away, hoping for the best. Phthalo is still hanging on but he barely moves around at this point. I got him to eat two small pellets today but he spit out the third so I didn't give him any more than that. I looked up more about symptoms of parasites and actually think that could be the problem, hopefully it is and the treatment works. If that's the issue and he's been successfully treated @Colu do you know how long it should take for me to see any kind of improvement?

Usually the feeding response will improve with in a couple of days some types of parasite levamisole treats can cause inflammation of the throat that why they spit food out 

Edited October 25, 2023 by Colu
Typo

[Tam]

On 10/24/2023 at 5:49 PM, Colu said:

Usually the feeding response will improve with in a couple of days some types of parasite levamisole treats can cause inflammation of the throat that why there spit food 

Great, thanks for the response, and thanks in general for all your help. I hope I have some good news to come back with next time.

[Tam]

Sad update unfortunately, Phthalo isn't getting better and declining pretty quickly now. Rapid breathing, having to frequently go up to the surface for air, he pays no attention to me at all, listlessly floats and doesn't have much strength to even swim. From my experience this is a stage that there's really isn't any coming back from. I'm so sad and discouraged, I tried really hard and on paper I do everything right with my bettas but I can't seem to keep them alive and healthy. I don't know if the expel-p would've helped if I'd done it sooner or what, I just have no idea what kills my fish each time. I'm really afraid of cross-contamination between his tank and my other betta since no treatments seem to work against it, I try really hard to avoid it but there's always some risk and it has me so paranoid. When Phthalo is gone I want to take down his tank completely and start over, but I have a couple nerite snails in there that I'm really attached to, especially the one I've had for well over two years, and I have no idea what to do with them if I take the tank down. If the snails themselves could carry whatever pathogen this is on them I can't risk putting them in any other tank where I want to have fish.

I'm just so heartbroken about Phthalo, I tried so hard and was so happy when it worked at first.