Betta Ill :( **pictures Added**

[alex:)]

my betta isnt looking too healthy, he has a white kind of colour forming under his mouth area. id say it looks the colour of white mould but it doesnt particularly look fluffy.

any help

thanks al.

 

[scooterchick]

Sounds like it could be the start of mouth rot. What size of tank? Is he alone in the tank? How often do you clean it? Do you have any stats, amonia, nitrite and nitrate? Can you get a picture? Until you have more info it would be inadvisable to add any treatments but do a water change first of all.

 

[alex:)]

waters good ammonia maybe slightly high, nitrate has rose a bit but only from 0 to 20 / 40

cant get a picture

30l tank.

 

[WILDER]

Flexibactor columnaris false name mouth fungus can look like the mouth bleached out, or fluffy looking white strands.

 

[scooterchick]

waters good ammonia maybe slightly high, nitrate has rose a bit but only from 0 to 20 / 40

cant get a picture

30l tank.

Is he alone in the tank? How long has the tank been running? If it's a well established tank you shouldn't have any amonia at all, if you do you're overstocked. Do a water change every day and see if there's any improvement, sometimes good tank husbandry's enough if a disease is caught early.

Good luck, hope he gets better soon.

 

[alex:)]

thanks for the responses, i bought some meltafix today and added it, i think it must be working (no good signs) but it looks like stringy kinda mucus im guessing is comming off him i guess thats only a good sign that its tackling it.

the bottle says it does

open red sores
fin and tail rot and eye cloud, pop eye, body slime, mouth n fungus and open body wounds so im hoping that sorts his suspected mouth rot out?

ive also changed about 2 litres of water in the tank and ive got another 4 litres ready to go in shortly,

i gave the tank a bit of a clean and bought a ario aerator suitable for the tank size, the other fish are looking happy but the waters still cloudy due to the change

i also bought a gravel sucker, and when i sucked some sand out it smelt quite bad, so im guessing maybe there is too much ammino in the water, i dont have an amino test kit but i have a 5 in 1

and the results are

gh - about 140
kh about 180
ph about 7 / 7.5
no2 about 5 and no3 about 80 (which were 0 the other day)

im guessing maybe the no's have gone up because of the meltafix and the accuclear i put in the water.

ill do 4 more litre water change (as i really want to clean the sand) then ill add some more melafix and wont water changed for 7 days like instructed on the bottle.

hows this all sound please?

 

[hollyp0p]

where are you from, US, UK...other??

melafix won't cure this, melafix helps healing when the infection is cleared, Wilder will help more certainly but in UK myxazin by waterlife you can use that with melafix to treat it, in the US maracyn one and two are a good combo!

 

[alex:)]

in the uk, are you sure melafix wont help it

 

[hollyp0p]

in the uk, are you sure melafix wont help it

yeah i've had a similar strain....in the end I couldn't find anything to cure the strain I had, yours sounds a bit more fungal than mine, but again I'd wait on wilder telling you.
obviously you can't get anything now so keep on with melafix, but it's too mild to treat anything really.....aquarium salt can help clear this up, and salt dips, but only if you have no invertebrates or scaleless fish with the betta.
pimafix and melafix can be used together for fungal infections, not sure if it's still strong enough though, wilder has been telling similar cases to use myxazin (which you can use with melafix).....or interpet's no.9 i think it is for internal bacteria, but seeing as yours is more fungal I'm not sure if she would recommend that for you.
if she doesn't beat me to it, i'll point her to your thread when she appears later on probably

unfortunately here in the UK we don't have the strong meds they have in the US, so often things are harder to treat.

 

[alex:)]

bizarre that our meds arnt as strong , oh well ill keep on with it and hopfully with all the water change and giving him some bloodworm for the fist time will perk him up today aswell as the airstone.

see how it goes

ps i dont suppose you know but i had some plants in a few weeks back but they died fairly quick, is this due to me not feeding them or the water quality at the time? as id really like to get some plants back to make the betta more at home.

 

[hollyp0p]

bizarre that our meds arnt as strong , oh well ill keep on with it and hopfully with all the water change and giving him some bloodworm for the fist time will perk him up today aswell as the airstone.

see how it goes

ps i dont suppose you know but i had some plants in a few weeks back but they died fairly quick, is this due to me not feeding them or the water quality at the time? as id really like to get some plants back to make the betta more at home.

yeah it's a shame...you can get meds from ebay, but of course it just means your waiting longer for them to get over from the US, I think medicated food is another one that can help columnaris, but wilder's the meds expert!
Water changes are good with columnaris, it prefers still, dirtier waters, so the airstone will help too.
what lighting do you have for the plants, i've got a few, mine don't last very well but my juwel light isn't very stong, so only my java ferns really survive, looking to upgrade my equipment and go for a more heavily planted look in a few months when i can afford to change it all about.
liquid ferts are also a good idea.....best place to ask is in the plants and planted tanks section for all info

 

[alex:)]

lighting is just a standard crap 20w bulb that came with the 30l tank i might up it to a 60w if thats a good idea?

here are some snaps of the sad fella.

sorry about lighting / dirty outside tank its all the splashes from water changes and the water still hasnt settled.

 

[hollyp0p]

it's quite hard to see isn't it!
yeah mine's only 15W so even worse....I mean things like java fern will be fine with that, but I reakon like me, you'll need to up the lighting...not sure how strong is recommended...I need to check that for myself really!

 

[alex:)]

I think there was always some discolouring on his face but its deffinotly more now and under his chin the scales have gone white / greyish.

you can see on one of the pics his eye is a bit mottled colour (cloudy).

also the 2 fins hanging down are crunched up but im pretty sure they always have been since purchase.

the white on those 2 fins tho might be getting slightly bigger (if thats fin rot?)

poor guy.

^ your lighting in your sig looks good.

I bought n used the gravel cleaner for the first time today, absolute effort with the black sand tho so im considering just filtering out all the sand and putting stuff like you have in the bottom as it'd be far easier to clean.

i read another thread very similar to this just a minute ago.... they have put theres in a 1gal tank on its own.. do you think that'd be advisable?

 

[hollyp0p]

I think there was always some discolouring on his face but its deffinotly more now and under his chin the scales have gone white / greyish.

you can see on one of the pics his eye is a bit mottled colour (cloudy).

also the 2 fins hanging down are crunched up but im pretty sure they always have been since purchase.

the white on those 2 fins tho might be getting slightly bigger (if thats fin rot?)

poor guy.

how long have you had him?
It doesn't look overly white, but then it is hard to tell....is it stringy or fluffy on the white itself or just paler colour?
When I first got my betta he had a much paler face than he does now.....and I understnd they can change colour get paler, etc when they get old, but if it's stringy or fluffy or looks like something under the scales then it won't be that.
His 2 dangly fins look no worse than my odin's two dangly fins and he recently had finrot on them, and no don't worry about the tios of those being white, again Odin's are white, and if he's only young they may well still be growing.