Continual Fin Rot in Betta

[EricksonAquatics]

Hello all

I’ve posted once before about my Betta having fin rot, but it’s been off and on for the past little while.

I’ve had this betta for almost a year and a half now. He’s from a big chain store so I assume has around 2 years old ish.

His fin rot recently came back and it’s worse than before. He still is eating fine but has been acting a little more lethargic than normal. He spends a lot of time hanging out on the gravel and especially under the big fake wood “cave” decoration I have in there. 
The fin rot shouldn’t be a water quality issue bc this tank is consistently 0ppm Ammonia and Nitrite and under 20ppm Nitrate. He shouldn’t have any stress factors besides the nerite snail living with him that he occasionally flares at. 
Basically I am just stumped as to what is causing this continual fin rot. His fins just don’t look as full and nice to me as they used to. There’s currently a catappa leaf in there as well.

Any ideas are appreciated. Thanks guys!

please ignore the hair algae and Cyanobacteria. Currently in the middle of a massive hair algae battle🙈

Here is a full tank shot. It’s a 10g, heated to 78F, filtered with a co-op sponge filter.

[Cory]

What are you feeding him? What are you doing to engage with him? Got a mirror or something for him to chase against the glass like a pencil eraser? Temp up to 80 might perk him up a bit more.

Also if you've owned him for 2 years, if he was already a year old, puts him at 3, might be slowing down a bit naturally from old age.

Have you tried putting something along the back to act as a background?

[EricksonAquatics]

I feed him Xtreme betta pellets and vibra bites with the occasional freeze dried bloodworm. 
I haven’t tried him with a mirror or really any other enrichment. Do you think that would help?

I figured he was getting a little old but wasn’t sure if most “elderly” bettas fins look like his. He just looks so raggedy😂

[EricksonAquatics]

Fins continue to look crappy. 

Wondering if I should do a low dose of salt again. Or try kanaplex? I’ve heard good things about it for fin rot but never personally tried it.

[NJ_FishDad]

I was having the same issue with our betta. We’ve had it almost exactly two years now.  Also in a 10G tank with an AQCoop sponge filter. Lightly planted. Fin rot was persistent and seemed like it was slowly getting worse.

Just as mentioned by Cory, I upped the water temperature to 80-81 F and it perked way up. For a long time, we had an inexpensive, fixed temp heater but I finally went out and got a nicer one so we could adjust it up higher than the fixed 78 F setting on that.

For the fin rot, I had tried the various natural cures but finally just did a course of Maracyn.  After that, we’ve seen very good fin re-growth.  Combined with the increased water temperature it was a huge improvement.

As a side note, ours is super picky about food.  Will not touch anything other than betta pellets.  Been on the Hikari pellets for a while now but just ordered the Xtreme betta pellets (from AQCoop of course) to see how it does on those.

Best of luck!

[EricksonAquatics]

That’s great to hear! I’ve done a course of Maracyn before and it didn’t seem to do much. Aquarium salt usually does the trick but I don’t think the Val and the Crypts appreciate it 😞😂

I’ll try upping the temp to 80. Thanks!

[Colu]

What I would do is up the temperature as other have mentioned add Indian almond leaves as there have antibacterial and antifungal properties you might have to add one leaf per gallon to get a beneficial effect and a course of maracyn2 active ingredient minocycline also has anti-inflammatory properties as most case of fin rot are caused by gram negative bacteria its also possible he's self harming biting his own fins that not uncommon in long finned bettas I  add a mirror or other items to try and distract him @EricksonAquatics

[EricksonAquatics]

Thank you very much @Colu. I’ve got one IAL in there but I’ll drop in a few more and dose Maracyn2 as suggested 🙂

[Whitecloud09]

On 5/3/2024 at 12:40 AM, Colu said:

What I would do is up the temperature as other have mentioned add Indian almond leaves as there have antibacterial and antifungal properties you might have to add one leaf per gallon to get a beneficial effect and a course of maracyn2 active ingredient minocycline also has anti-inflammatory properties as most case of fin rot are caused by gram negative bacteria its also possible he's self harming biting his own fins that not uncommon in long finned bettas I  add a mirror or other items to try and distract him @EricksonAquatics

Agreed. 

 

On 5/1/2024 at 11:05 PM, NJ_FishDad said:

I was having the same issue with our betta. We’ve had it almost exactly two years now.  Also in a 10G tank with an AQCoop sponge filter. Lightly planted. Fin rot was persistent and seemed like it was slowly getting worse.

Just as mentioned by Cory, I upped the water temperature to 80-81 F and it perked way up. For a long time, we had an inexpensive, fixed temp heater but I finally went out and got a nicer one so we could adjust it up higher than the fixed 78 F setting on that.

For the fin rot, I had tried the various natural cures but finally just did a course of Maracyn.  After that, we’ve seen very good fin re-growth.  Combined with the increased water temperature it was a huge improvement.

As a side note, ours is super picky about food.  Will not touch anything other than betta pellets.  Been on the Hikari pellets for a while now but just ordered the Xtreme betta pellets (from AQCoop of course) to see how it does on those.

Best of luck!

And agreed,  for my advice, same as both of these guys said, up temp to 80 will definitely help. Almond leafs can help. Imagining your tank is completely cycled and probably 100% is. A mirror helps more than you think. 
 

I had a betta (I believe you knew about him named Sonic) and I had tons of experience with him, got experience with salt, kanaplex, clamped fins, mild fin rot, stress lol, and swim bladder, oh yeah and I messed up probably the most important thing, the cycle. No bragging going on here because I would not Bragg about that kind of thing obviously lol.
 

Yep enough about my experience and now my advice. Salt would help possibly but maracyn would definitely help. I am almost certain that he would get some energy from the mirror. Pretty much the same as what Cory and others said, 

is he active and swimming sometimes at all @EricksonAquatics? Or is he sitting at the bottom all the time.

Edited May 3 by Whitecloud09
Millions of typos

[EricksonAquatics]

yes he mostly just sits on the bottom when the light is on (so midday) but he’ll usually still move around on the bottom. And then in the morning and evening he’s pretty active because he’s waiting to get fed😂

Im no so concerned about his lethargy as I am about his fin rot. I think he really is just getting up there in age and is slowing down a bit. But that’s okay 🙂 

[Whitecloud09]

On 5/3/2024 at 3:18 PM, EricksonAquatics said:

yes he mostly just sits on the bottom when the light is on (so midday) but he’ll usually still move around on the bottom. And then in the morning and evening he’s pretty active because he’s waiting to get fed😂

Im no so concerned about his lethargy as I am about his fin rot. I think he really is just getting up there in age and is slowing down a bit. But that’s okay 🙂 

Yep, age. Mine was 2 and a half when he died (I think idk fully) and not saying he is gonna die soon, but we have no idea when their time will come but for the fin rot I would do maracyn like @Colu mentioned.

 

On 5/1/2024 at 9:39 PM, EricksonAquatics said:

Wondering if I should do a low dose of salt again. Or try kanaplex? I’ve heard good things about it for fin rot but never personally tried it.

Yes I have too, sadly I didn’t see the result of it when I used it on my betta (as he passed a few days after) but yes, definitely, I would buy it.

[anodyne99]

It's a little hard to tell from the photos, but is he also skinny? Sometimes bettas get fin rot, clamped fins, erratic swimming, and slowly increasing general lethargy as a result of a bacterial infection with mycobacterium marinum. It's more common in bettas because they breathe from the surface where this bacteria creates a film.  Unfortunately it's not usually responsive to antibiotics, but some people have had success slowing it down with UV sterilizers. If you have any other tanks, definitely sterilize nets and siphons between them. In very rare instances it can cause skin infections in humans, so you want to wear gloves when working in his tank if you have broken skin on your hands or a weakened immune system. 

Edited May 6 by anodyne99