Major Fin Rot, Progressed To Severe Body Rot! Need Advice Asap

[brassattack]

This betta is in really bad shape, I've never seen a fish with fin rot this severe. So I got the fish a little over two weeks ago from a prof at my university who uses Betta in behavior studies. When I got him he was already missing about 50% of his fins from a previous bout of fin rot but the prof assured me he didn't have it anymore. I put him in a 2.5 gal tank with a sponge filter built into the tank and a heater that I'm assuming is pre set to 80 F. The tank had been cleaned pretty thoroughly but as a side note I had been using it during an experiment breeding Malaysian trumpet snails. He was put in with completely fresh water with gravel substrrate and some plastic decorations. For the first couple days he was completely fine, showing no symptoms of rot though he had a tendency to hide in the decorations all the time but I tried to get a good look at him at least once I day. Unfortunately a day or two after getting him I left for a week vacation and when I returned he looked awful. Almost no fins left and the start of body rot. I immediately started him on API T.C tetracycline and so far I'm on my second set of dosage and have seen no improvement. Besides the meds I've also been pre mixing aquarium salt into the water, I've seen recommendations to triple dosage to treat fin rot (which would be 2.5 tsp per gallon) but as of right now Ive been doing about 1 or 1.5 tsp per gallon. The fish is still eating but he's been sitting at the top of his tank just floating there unless disturbed. Right now he has no tail fin left and where his tail fin met his body it's red and white along with various white patches on his body and his other remaining fins are bloody red looking. I also noticed his gills becoming discolored. I'm not sure how to proceed because he's obviously in awful shape and at this point I don't know if it's possible for him to recover. As I've seen no improvement after about 5 days on the tetracycline. Meanwhile another Betta I have thats had minor fin rot since I bought him is finally starting to have his clear up a bit on the tetracycline. As this fish was showing improvement I have placed the sicker fish floating in that tank in a breeder in the hopes that the 10 gal he's floating in now is a cleaner environment as I've had trouble keeping the small tank pristine while keeping a high enough concentration of meds in the water. The water parameters of the tank both fish are in now are as follows:
pH: alkaline around 7.8-8.2 (which is probably too alkaline)
Nitrate: less than 0.25 but not 0.0
Ammonia: between 0.0 and 0.25 (but closer to 0.0 color wise)
Nitrate: between 20 and 0
I used a dry tab test to get the parameters. Any advice would really help me out as I would love for this fish to survive this but also I hate to see him suffer if recovery isn't possible. I can take picutes of him if anyone asks!

 

[NickAu]

Finrot is the direct result of poor water conditions.
 
You mention all this medicine and aquarium salt yest I did not notice how often you do water changes.
 
What are you using to treat the water with? Eg Seachem prime.
 

 
I'm assuming is pre set to 80 F

Assuming? I think you need to verify it.

 

[eaglesaquarium]

Agreed, definitely worth verifying.  Many times with a temp lower than that fin rot strikes.

 

[brassattack]

I no longer have the package for the heater, I just know many small tank tropical heaters are set to 80 F as at the time of making the post I didn't have access to a reliable thermometer. Right now the tanks at 76 F. As for water changes in the 10 gal I do partial changes (25%) every week and in the 2.5 I usually try to do 100% or 90% water changes weekly whenever I have a fish in there but as I stated above I received the fish during poor timing as I immediately went on vacation after setting the tank up. The week I was away no water changes were performed, I only had someone feeding the fish which is likely why the fish got such severe fin rot. I did a 100% change the day I got home and immediately began the antibiotic and salt treatments. I know Betta are pretty hardy fish and stupidly assumed the fish would survive for a week without a water change and not expect such a rapid onset of symptoms and deterioration. If I have to I have another heater I can put in the tank if you think that will help and I've been using API stress coat+ to condition the water, mostlty because I've read a lot of people suggesting it in fish healing from fin rot. The package suggests doubling dosage to 10mL per 10 gal to help injured fish and I've been doing a little less than that in fear of overdosing the fish since I've been doing almost daily 25% water changes. I also saw at the pet store today that API makes two types of medicines for bacterial infections and was curious if the type of anti biotic makes a difference in treatment?

 

[eaglesaquarium]

At the wrong temp, without a water change you are inviting problems.  Fin rot is extremely common in bettas under those conditions.  
 
You need to get a thermometer immediately.  You need to know the temperature of the water.  76F is too low for the betta and you will be fighting an uphill battle the whole way to treat the fish.

 

[cowgirluntamed]

I think most preset heaters are 75 to 76 as this is a good range for most tropical fish. I have one preset and it's at that temp. Bettas should be right around 80. I recommend a small but adjustable heater if you can find one. Walmart sells floating glass thermometers and a stick on the glass thermometer. Both are accurate as far as I can tell and not very expensive.

I also recommend the api liquid freshwater master test kit. Worth its weight in gold to be more accurate on water quality issues.

 

[brassattack]

I have a thermometer now, as I said at the time of making the post I just didn't have one avialble at that time now but now I have one with the tank. I'll do what I can heater wise, I don't think I'll be able to get one immediately but I'll do my best. After an overnight stay in the 10 g the fish in question already looks a lot better. The discloration around his gills is gone and one side of his body is completely clear of white patches and his tail area is not nearly as red and bloody looking and a hole he had in his scales on the other side of his body looks a lot better and no longer fuzzy and rotted. He's also not just sitting at the surface of the tank so much, he's swimming around more. For now I'm gonna keep him the 10 gal and continue this set of med dosage, hopefully find a better heater too. Meanwhile I'm gonna put that 2.5 gal outta commission for a while. As a side note I always read that good temps for betta are between 76 and 80 F? Just surprised bc it's a pretty widespread piece of information I've seen in books, on websites and blogs. Thanks for the help though! I know water quality is a major factor along with fish stress in getting fin to but didn't realize a few degrees off in temp could contribute.

 

[brassattack]

@cowgirluntamed
I think the one I have in the 10 gal is preset to 80, only bc the thermometer I've been using is one of this infrared contact ones where you point and click and I was curious what temp the heater was at. The only other tanks we have in the house are my dad's huge tropical ones and he just has those stick on thermometers and a digital one stuck on the top of one so he doesn't bother keeping an extra tank thermometer around. I also think the heater I have is a 5 gal heater but the price of brand new larger heaters at petsmart always make me pause before buying one. And I definitely need a better test kit, the one we use is ancient and almost out of indicator aanyway Thanks for the suggestions!

 

[cowgirluntamed]

Did you point it at the heater or the water itself? Not sure how those work if something was in the way a bit. Though I was curious if it was a good thing to have on hand just in case. Lol. Most of the really good sites I think say IDEAL temp is 78 to 80. Betta groups I visited before getting mine confirmed this as well. It can be kept lower but that generally leads to health issues. (And some of the site's and books also claim you can keep a betta in a very small container without anything....so you have to be careful what certain things pop up.)

As for the heater, the ones at petsmart are very expensive. Heck...everything there is...lol. I usually go to http/www.drsfostersmith.com and order stuff from there. I have a few marineland precision heaters that I absolutely love. Ive never had any problems with them except when I accidentally didn't let it cool off long enough before a water change...

But they have other heaters as well. My new big tank will have different ones because the marineland were on backorder when I ordered them...oh well!