Female Betta.

[xweeqtx]

Ok, so for the last week or so I had been trying to get the female conditioned for spawning - but soon realised after she was put in the tank that there was something wrong.

Firstly, I reckoned swim bladder issues as she seemed as if she was "bobbing" vertically at the surface of the water, like her tail-end was being pulled down and had problems swimming properly. First thing, tried a pea, in case constipation had caused it[although there was no bloating whatsoever] - but she didn't even look at it.

The water level was already lowered, so 4 inches of water, added IAL and a bit of salt to see if that would help any. Been a few days now, her fins have unclamped and she's eating flake - but otherwise, no improvement on the apparent swim bladder issue.

The bit that's really bugging me is the fact that her body is bent into an "S" shape, like the shape the female goes after the male squeezes eggs from her. She's never been near a male yet, so it isn't possible a male caused any permanent damage.

Any ideas?

 

[WILDER]

If the spine has bent it means old age, internal parasites, to fish tb.
Is she producing long stringy white poo.

 

[xweeqtx]

If the spine has bent it means old age, internal parasites, to fish tb.
Is she producing long stringy white poo.

She died today

But, would still like to determine what the problem was.

I didn't notice anything stringy, no. And it was by no means old age, she was two months old at a push when she arrived.

Another strange thing I noticed she was doing was she kept lying out of the water, on top of the IAL, on a plant, up the sides of the glass..

Looked up what you mentioned, TB seems to fit worringly well.

Mycobacteriosis is a chronic progressive disease. It may take years for it to develop into a clinically apparent illness. Some signs to look out for include: Lethargy, anorexia, fin and scale loss, exopthalmia, emaciation, skin inflamation and ulceration, edema, peritonitis and nodules in muscles that may deform the fish.

Lethargic, and although eating she was very very thing, the bent spine..

Her scales appeared to be greying, is that a symptom?

 

[Jaded12]

I'm sorry u lost her But it did sound like either fish tb or parasites to me

 

[ibbledibble]

Sorry to hijack your thread, but i've also just lost one of my girls sounds fairly similar symptoms.

i had her in a quarantine tank treating her for what i thought was fin rot, but she seemed to get progressively worse. she wasn't really eating. maybe 1 pellet if any, and she's always been a greedy little thing.
almost as soon as i got her home she started egging up and she still had the plump egged up shape, but further back down her tail she looked really skinny.
she had whitish patches on her belly, but they looked more like stretch marks than anything else not fluffy or flakey at all.
as mentioned she had damage to her anal fin that looked like fin rot. all my girls have slightly ragged fins from the sorority tank (although i just removed the worst offender morrigan, who was the only perfectly intact female) but i add some melafix every so often and never had any other problems with it.
once she was in the quarantine tank i was able to keep a closer eye on her and realized she was hanging near the surface most of the time with her tail dragging a bit. also soon became clear she had stringy white poo.
was planning to go out and get some internal parasite meds, but she died today.

should i treat the sorority tank as a precaution? how will that affect my BN and khuli loach?

water stats in the sorority tank are
Ammonia 0
NitrIte 0
NitrAte 5
PH 7.5-8

 

[WILDER]

White patches that look bleached out can be columnaris to parasites.

Its very hard to say it was fish tb as really you need to do test on the fsih at a vet to really say it was tb.
If the fish had a bent spine and was thin, with no stringy white poo it does point towards tb more.

I would strip the little betta tank down and sterlise everything in the tank.
R.I.P.

 

[xweeqtx]

White patches that look bleached out can be columnaris to parasites.

Its very hard to say it was fish tb as really you need to do test on the fsih at a vet to really say it was tb.
If the fish had a bent spine and was thin, with no stringy white poo it does point towards tb more.

I would strip the little betta tank down and sterlise everything in the tank.
R.I.P.

Wasn't really bleached out.. how can I describe it - like ash, the grey of ash was the colouring on some of her scales. She was a steel blue, so it was kinda noticable that way.

She was in her own tank, anyhoo - with nothing other than a heater, plant and IAL so I could keep an eye on her. Just in case it was TB, is that able to infect humans?