Betta Breathing extra heavy after Jungle fungus cure

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Today was the last day of dose 1 of the nitrofurazone. I sadly haven't seen any improvement. He's still coming up to eat, but immediately goes back to the bottom and stays there the whole day. Should I move onto dose 2 or do a water change and give him a short break from the medicine?
 
Water change, wait a day and then move into dose two
 
How many plants have you got in your tank? Have you any floating plants? What is the pH.
I only have one anubias nana. I have no floating plants. I had water lettuce for like 3 days(this was like 3 weeks ago), but they started rotting so I took them out. The ph is 8.3, but he was ok in this ph the first 3 months I had him.
 
I only have one anubias nana. I have no floating plants. I had water lettuce for like 3 days(this was like 3 weeks ago), but they started rotting so I took them out. The ph is 8.3, but he was ok in this ph the first 3 months I had him.
8.3 pH is just too high for this guy, he is just rotting away, and with no plants he is scared as well. These fish need to be in a tank with a pH of around seven, they need floating plants as they live on the surface of the tank and use the plants for protection from above. I don't know a simple fix but pouring drugs into this tank will not cure the fish of its aliments. It is stressed and is sick because of that.
 
Hi, I'm sorry that you're going through this, it's never easy with fish illness, and it's very distressing to feel helpless to fix it when nothing seems to be working. But it's obvious that you care very much and want to do whatever you can to help him, and that's good to see. A sign of a caring fishkeeper I always look for!
I'm no expert. Just a fellow hobbyist who tries to help puzzle these things out because I've been in similar situations. Fish illness and disease is really tough to diagnose - none of us are vets, and even most vets are clueless about fish. Taking something like a guppy or betta to a specialised fish vet just isn't practical or sensible, so we all have to kind of flail around and try things out, hoping for the best. Then you seek advice, and find a lot of armchair vets making best guesses (like me!) or others who firmly believe in their diagnosing skills and will be loud about it, while others try to tear you apart about your set up etc.

It's one of the worst parts of the hobby.
This was him a few days ago. He looks about the same but has only been lethargic, breathing heavy on the bottom for a while now. He still comes up to eat, but it seems that when he eats he's still in pain and will dart back down immediately after eating. I was getting help form Collin but he hasn't been online for a few days.

I consulted with other people online and they diagnosed him with columnaris.
Could you link the previous thread where Colin was helping you please? Would like to see how this has progressed. I'm unsure about the columnaris diagnosis... can't see any typical patches on him in that photo, and that usually kills pretty fast and is transmitted by contact with infected fish. Unlikely he'd be carrying it for four months then only show symptoms now.
Yeah, I've looked at that site too. Like I said, I was using the jungle tabs as a substitute for furan-2 since they contain the same antibiotic(nitrofurazone). I shouldn't have dosed the recommended amount since my fish was probably too weak for that. Some amazon reviews also stated that this medication killed their fish so I feel so stupid for not listening to them.

There are people that will claim doing a water change will kill your fish. Don't beat yourself up there.

Amazon reviews are a helpful guideline, but don't take them all as gospel. Every fish product on Amazon has reviews claiming that sort of thing, even more so any medications. But remember that those folks aren't vets either, and they bought the med 'cos their fish was sick already. Most won't have been diagnosed properly, were already dying from something non-disease related, like ammonia poisoning, or even if they had the right diagnosis, perhaps it was just already too late for those fish by the time the med arrived. So the fish was killed by the disease, but the med gets the blame since it's human nature apparently to put the blame on an outside source rather than accept responsibility for our own mistakes... ;)
 
8.3 pH is just too high for this guy, he is just rotting away, and with no plants he is scared as well. These fish need to be in a tank with a pH of around seven, they need floating plants as they live on the surface of the tank and use the plants for protection from above. I don't know a simple fix but pouring drugs into this tank will not cure the fish of its aliments. It is stressed and is sick because of that.
I have a PH of 8.1-8.2 with anubias and neutral PH fish... They all are doing great! A stable PH is better than one thats fluxing. Now I would test to see if you have hard water as normal hard water has a high PH... My water is just weird and has a high PH with soft water
 
8.3 pH is just too high for this guy, he is just rotting away, and with no plants he is scared as well. These fish need to be in a tank with a pH of around seven, they need floating plants as they live on the surface of the tank and use the plants for protection from above. I don't know a simple fix but pouring drugs into this tank will not cure the fish of its aliments. It is stressed and is sick because of that.
Thank you for your input! I know that the ideal ph for a betta is around 7, but the tap water here is about 8.3 and I would rather not use ph altering chemicals. I also currently do not have enough funds to buy RO/DI water for him. I completely understand what you mean about my fish being stressed because he does not have enough cover. I also thought about this. I had a bunch of silk plants and a cave, but when I put them in he got even worse, so I took them back out. Originally, I thought one of the silk plants or the caves were poisoning him since he did well with them in the tank previously, but when I reintroduced him back into the tank he started getting worse. My friend gave me water lettuce but they started to rot because of the medicine and lack of light since I didn't want to stress my betta out with the tank lights.
Thanks again!
Edit:spelling
 
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Taking something like a guppy or betta to a specialised fish vet just isn't practical or sensible, so we all have to kind of flail around and try things out, hoping for the best. Then you seek advice, and find a lot of armchair vets making best guesses (like me!) or others who firmly believe in their diagnosing skills and will be loud about it, while others try to tear you apart about your set up etc.
I was considering taking him to the vet. The vet wanted me to come in immediately, but as a broke college student, I can't afford the fees. The estimate was $150+ and everyone around me told me it wasn't worth it. I have cried many times about this because I feel terrible that I can't do much for him.
Could you link the previous thread where Colin was helping you please? Would like to see how this has progressed. I'm unsure about the columnaris diagnosis... can't see any typical patches on him in that photo, and that usually kills pretty fast and is transmitted by contact with infected fish. Unlikely he'd be carrying it for four months then only show symptoms now.
Here's the link. It's a long read. https://www.fishforums.net/threads/help-betta-is-lethargic-and-is-breathing-heavy.478530/
I also originally wasn't sure about the columnaris diagnosis but it was the closest thing that I got. He has slight pineconing on just one patch(it hasn't progressed), so it isn't dropsy, but I didn't know what else it would be.

Thank you so much for your help! I really appreciate it!
 
I have a PH of 8.1-8.2 with anubias and neutral PH fish... They all are doing great! A stable PH is better than one thats fluxing. Now I would test to see if you have hard water as normal hard water has a high PH... My water is just weird and has a high PH with soft water
Yeah I heard that a stable ph was better so I haven't tried to alter it. The tap water in my college town also has soft water with a high ph according to the water reports. I have a gh and kh kit, but they are back at home and I won't be back til spring break.
 
Yeah I heard that a stable ph was better so I haven't tried to alter it. The tap water in my college town also has soft water with a high ph according to the water reports. I have a gh and kh kit, but they are back at home and I won't be back til spring break.
My tap has a very high KH so you may very well have a high KH to. But I could very well be wrong and you have very little KH
 
The ammonia has risen up to .5 ppm. I keep doing daily 50% water changes, but the ammonia always registers to .5 ppm the next day. I think I'm going to hold off on the medicine and keep doing water changes. Since I feel like medicine isn't working, I might just try to maintain the water quality at this point. I really don't know what to do because with medicine you can't really do water changes and I don't want the ammonia to rise even more.
He has still been eating well. I just haven't seen any improvement so far. He still spends his whole day on the bottom breathing heavy :(
Edit:grammar
 
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