[AquaticLife] Sick Betta
Hi Melissa,
Fin rot and the white poop are both signs of bacterial issues in your water and fish. The white poop could also be a digestive tract parasitic issue. In short, you fish is sick. The most common cause of sick fish are water quality issues so lets fix that first while working on treating the fish. You should be doing daily 25% PWC’s (partial water changes) and vacuuming the gravel with each PWC.
How big is the tank/bowl that he is in? Tell us more about his home and your maintenance habits… how often do you do PWC’s, vacuum the gravel, etc.?
Where are you located? Does your LFS or chain store carry fish medicines? What brand/kind do you currently have?
For the fin rot, I would start with a Melafix treatment to the water column.. Use NO MORE than 50% of the normal dosage and 25% might be even better. That would mean to use 1/2 or 1/4 of the recommended dosage. For labyrinth fish like bettas and gouramis, the strong smell of the melafix active ingredient messes with their breathing when they breath from the surface with their labyrinth. API, the makers of Melafix, also make a product called Bettafix which is just a 10% solution of Melafix but it’s just as expensive as Melafix so you would be better off getting Melafix and using a partial dosage of 1/2 or less. I’ve used up to 50% with labyrinth fish without having any problems.
The Melafix will also help with an internal bacterial issue but not so much with parasites… if that is what your guy has. There are anti-parasitic foods that you may be able to dose his favorite food with but then he may not eat it so you’ll have to try it and see.
Even if you don’t have access to all of the meds that are recommended, if you start doing daily 25% PWC’s, this will vastly improve his water quality and then the fishes immune system should get stronger and he might be able to fight off the problems on his own.
You can also add salt to his PWC water starting off with 1 level teaspoon per gallon (0.1%) on the first day and working your way up to three level teaspoons per gallon (0.3%). This article goes over salt as a treatment in more detail so read over the entire article. http://www.skepticalaquarist.com/docs/health/salt.shtml
Lenny Vasbinder Fish Blog - http://GoldLenny.blogspot.com
Category: Philippines Internet Koi Society
