ADF and now Betta suddenly super sick! Please help!

[leaena256]

Took this format from another fish forum, all details below.

What is the water volume of the tank?
6.8 gallons

How long has the tank been running?
2 months

Does it have a filter?
Yes

Does it have a heater?
Yes

What is the water temperature?
80 F

What is the entire stocking of this tank? (Please list all fish and inverts.)
2 Male African Dwarf Frogs (1 was euthanized an hour ago)
3 Amano shrimp
1 Male betta

Maintenance
How often do you change the water?
Weekly

How much of the water do you change?
25% roughly

What do you use to treat your water?
Seachem prime

Do you vacuum the substrate or just the water?
I did not vacuum the substrate last water change, but I did on the water change two weeks ago.

*Parameters - Very Important
Did you cycle your tank before adding fish?
Fish in cycle using the one male betta, ammonia and nitrite "spiked" at .5 ppm

What do you use to test the water?
API master kit
What are your parameters? We need to know the exact numbers, not just “fine” or “safe”.

Ammonia: 0 ppm
Nitrite: 0 ppm
Nitrate: 10/20 ppm can't tell color difference, but most likely 10 as my nitrates were 5 ppm last week
pH: 7.2 to 7.4

Feeding
How often do you feed your fish?
My betta gets fed a few pellets daily. Sometimes freeze dried brine shrimp.
My ADF get frozen bloodworms every other day.
My amanos get a tiny piece of an algae wafer every two or three days, sometimes i sprinkle the freeze dried brine shrimp in the tank for them to scavenge.

How much do you feed your fish?
My betta gets up to 5 pellets at a feeding, usually less.
My adfs I give until I see a little belly on them.

What brand of food do you feed your fish?
Omega one betta pellets, hikari dried brine shrimp, SF bay frozen blood worms.

Do you feed frozen or freeze-dried foods?
Yes

Illness & Symptoms
How long have you had this fish?
Betta - 2 months
ADF - a week and a half

How long ago did you first notice these symptoms?
For the ADF - Two days ago
Betta - An hour ago

In a few words, can you explain the symptoms?
ADF - First saw something was wrong when one of them did not eat, the other ate vicariously. The next day he was floating at the top with his legs spread out, at first thought this was the "burbling" behavior, but then displayed the "trying to climb out of tank" behavior associated with chytrid this morning. I had to leave for work, but before I left I set up a quarantine tank for him, but did not put him in. I wanted to get a smaller "bathing" tank I could treat him with, then transfer him to quarantine. When I came back from work, he was belly up and gently moving with the filters current, moving a leg every now and then. The shrimp would come investigate his body and he did not respond to them. I euthanized him shortly after... I was so heartbroken I cried.

Betta - I did not take a good look at my betta this morning since I was so preoccupied with my frog, but after watching him when I got home, I noticed his fins were clamped at the top, and he was moving much slower. He even laid at the bottom which he never does when he sees me.

Have you started any treatment for the illness?
I plan to start treatment for the other ADF for chytrid tomorrow, he currently shows no symptoms associated with it though. I was planning on doing the terbinafine hydrochloride treatment. I will gladly take advice on how to deal with this though... if its chytrid at all.

Betta - currently in a one gallon quarantine tank. I have no idea whats wrong with him.

Was your fish physically ill or injured upon purchase?
No.

How has its behavior and appearance changed, if at all?
I tried to look for white spots on my betta, but could not find any. I introduced neon tetra to my main tank two weeks ago, but returned them bc of my bettas aggression. I thought maybe they had ich, but there are no white spots on him and he's not trying to scratch himself.
He seems to he getting worse by the minute... he's just laying on his side on the bottom of the QT. He ate and swam fine this morning.

Explain your emergency situation in detail. (Please give a clear explanation of what is going on, include details from the beginning of the illness leading up to now)

Please help, I'm so lost on what to do! I have no idea how my betta got sick, I thought chytrid (if my adf even for sure had it) wasn't transmittable to fish. And please help with my other ADF, though he is acting completely normal at the moment. My amano shrimp are also fine, nothing weird with them.

 

[Colin_T]

Have you got a picture of the fish and frog?
If the pictures are too big for the website, set the camera's resolution to its lowest setting and take some more. The lower resolution will make the images smaller and they should fit on this website. Check the pictures on your pc and find a couple that are clear and show the problem, and post them here. Make sure you turn the camera's resolution back up after you have taken the pics otherwise all your pictures will be small.

Did you do anything to the tank a few days ago, just before this started?
Did you quarantine the new frogs and neon tetras before adding them to the tank?
What sort of filter do you have and has it been cleaned recently?
Do you have buckets that are used specifically for the tank?

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The best thing to do for any sick fish is a 75%water change and gravel clean the substrate every day until the problem is identified or resolved. The big water changes dilute nutrients, chemicals and disease organisms making it safer for the fish and other inhabitants. Gravel cleaning the substrate gets rid of any gunk in the gravel and reduces disease organisms in the gravel.
*NB* Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it's added to the tank.

You should gravel clean the substrate any time you do a water change, and you should do bigger water changes.

You do water changes for 2 main reasons.
1) to reduce nutrients like ammonia, nitrite & nitrate.
2) to dilute disease organisms in the water.

Fish live in a soup of microscopic organisms including bacteria, fungus, viruses, protozoans, worms, flukes and various other things that make your skin crawl. Doing a big water change and gravel cleaning the substrate on a regular basis will dilute these organisms and reduce their numbers in the water, thus making it a safer and healthier environment for the fish.

If you do a 25% water change each week you leave behind 75% of the bad stuff in the water.
If you do a 50% water change each week you leave behind 50% of the bad stuff in the water.
If you do a 75% water change each week you leave behind 25% of the bad stuff in the water.

Fish live in their own waste. Their tank and filter is full of fish poop. The water they breath is filtered through fish poop. Cleaning filters, gravel and doing big regular water changes, removes a lot of this poop and makes the environment cleaner and healthier for the fish.

-------------------------
The following link has information about what to do if your fish gets sick. It's long and boring but worth knowing. I recommend printing it out and reading it in bed to help fall asleep.
www.fishforums.net/threads/what-to-do-if-your-fish-gets-sick.450268/

 

[leaena256]

Have you got a picture of the fish and frog?
If the pictures are too big for the website, set the camera's resolution to its lowest setting and take some more. The lower resolution will make the images smaller and they should fit on this website. Check the pictures on your pc and find a couple that are clear and show the problem, and post them here. Make sure you turn the camera's resolution back up after you have taken the pics otherwise all your pictures will be small.

Did you do anything to the tank a few days ago, just before this started?
Did you quarantine the new frogs and neon tetras before adding them to the tank?
What sort of filter do you have and has it been cleaned recently?
Do you have buckets that are used specifically for the tank?

-------------------------
The best thing to do for any sick fish is a 75%water change and gravel clean the substrate every day until the problem is identified or resolved. The big water changes dilute nutrients, chemicals and disease organisms making it safer for the fish and other inhabitants. Gravel cleaning the substrate gets rid of any gunk in the gravel and reduces disease organisms in the gravel.
*NB* Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it's added to the tank.

You should gravel clean the substrate any time you do a water change, and you should do bigger water changes.

You do water changes for 2 main reasons.
1) to reduce nutrients like ammonia, nitrite & nitrate.
2) to dilute disease organisms in the water.

Fish live in a soup of microscopic organisms including bacteria, fungus, viruses, protozoans, worms, flukes and various other things that make your skin crawl. Doing a big water change and gravel cleaning the substrate on a regular basis will dilute these organisms and reduce their numbers in the water, thus making it a safer and healthier environment for the fish.

If you do a 25% water change each week you leave behind 75% of the bad stuff in the water.
If you do a 50% water change each week you leave behind 50% of the bad stuff in the water.
If you do a 75% water change each week you leave behind 25% of the bad stuff in the water.

Fish live in their own waste. Their tank and filter is full of fish poop. The water they breath is filtered through fish poop. Cleaning filters, gravel and doing big regular water changes, removes a lot of this poop and makes the environment cleaner and healthier for the fish.

-------------------------
The following link has information about what to do if your fish gets sick. It's long and boring but worth knowing. I recommend printing it out and reading it in bed to help fall asleep.
www.fishforums.net/threads/what-to-do-if-your-fish-gets-sick.450268/

My ADF died within three days, my betta in half a day. I did not take pictures of them. I know it seems impossible that the betta got sick and died so quick but I seriously loved my tank, I watched and obsessed over them every day sometimes for hours. He only just had the clamped tail and lethargy yesterday.

To answer your questions.
1) Nothing was done to the tank within recent days.

2) My biggest regret was not quarantining the frogs or tetras, in hindsight that was such a stupid move, I WORK at petco and have seen the tetra's mortality rate, even though I returned them alive, maybe they introduced something to my tank then. Same for the frogs, but I got them at a different petco location.

3) I use the filter that came with my imagitarium kit, it's like inside the tank. About two or three weeks ago I swapped out the carbon filter for a fluval carbon filter and added filter floss. I also added ceramic rings to a corner of the filter, just a few.

4) Yes, the salmonella that the frogs carry led me to being very careful with their water changes and any equipment used. I recently used diluted hydrogen peroxide, since I heard it turns into water later on, to sterilize the bucket and all my equipment with it, rinsed it off and let it dry in the sun for a couple hours.

I was informed by various sources only to do a 50% water change when really needed? Not as a weekly thing. I thought that 25% was the max you could go for weekly changes? I'll be more diligent about vacuuming the gravel, after I transfer my shrimp to another tank and completely nuke my current one

 

[Colin_T]

You can change 90% of the tank water every day as long as the new water has a similar chemistry (pH, GH, KH) and temperature to the tank water, and as long as the new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it's added to the tank.

I recommend doing a 75% water change and gravel cleaning the substrate once a week on an established tank.
You do a 75% water change and gravel clean the substrate if a fish/ frog, big snail dies in the tank.
You do a 75% water change and gravel clean the substrate if you have any ammonia or nitrite readings above 0, or a nitrate reading above 20ppm.

-----------------------
What sort of filter do you have?

You don't want to change filter materials on any regular basis. If you remove and replace the old material, you get rid of any beneficial filter bacteria growing in the filter and this can cause ammonia and nitrite levels to go up and kill the fish, shrimp, snails and frogs.

Sponges are the best filter material and will last 10+ years. Sponges get squeezed out in a bucket of tank water and re-used. You can buy sponges for most brands of filter (I use AquaClear but there are other brands) and use a pr of scissors to cut them to size and fit them in the filter.

If you have an external power filter, you can get a round/ cylindrical sponge from some internal power filters. These sponges have a hole through the centre and they fit over the intake strainer of most external power filters. You take the sponge off once a week and wash it in a bucket of tank water before putting it back on the intake strainer.

If you have cartridges in the filter, you can usually squeeze them out in a bucket of tank water and put them back in the filter. If the cartridges have carbon (black granules) or ammonia adsorbing granules (white granules), then make a small cut in the top or bottom of the cartridge and tip these granules out and throw them away. Then wash the cartridge in a bucket of tank water and re-use it.