Fungal Infection?

[jkflute13]

Hi everyone, I’m new to this forum and was looking for some advice on my betta Leo.

This morning when I was feeding him, I noticed grayish, whitish splotches on his upper body and face. He doesn’t seem to be acting differently from normal, but the sudden appearance of these discolorations worry me. He’s a little over 2 years old now and I know some discoloration can be due to age, but I doubt that happens overnight.

I tested my water with my API test kit and got somewhere between 0 and 0.25 ppm ammonia, 0 ppm nitrate and about 10 ppm nitrate. Today I performed a water change, and I saw on some other sites that aquarium salt can help with recovery from various diseases, so I followed the directions on the container to add 2 tbsp of salt when I did my water change.

My tank is 10 gallons, I have a couple anubias nana plants I added about a month ago, and I have 5 cory catfish that seem to be doing just fine. I’m also consistent about doing weekly water changes of about 30% and try to keep my tank pretty clean (other than some of the pesky algae that grows on my rocks). The only other thing I can think to mention is that I noticed a bit of fin rot in May, but Leo’s fins seem to be grown back more now from using API Stress Coat during water changes.

Any suggestions? I attached some photos of him I just took, as well as a photo for reference as to what he looked like a couple months ago (sorry for the poor quality on that one)

 

[Colin_T]

Have you got any pictures of the fish before this happened?

The white patches on the head look like physical damage, possibly from the rocks.

There is a white patch on the rear half of his body that concerns me. That could be an infection. How long has that been there for?

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Basic treatment would be the following.
Wipe the inside of the glass down with a clean fish sponge.

Do a 75% water change and gravel clean the substrate every day for a week. The water changes and gravel cleaning will reduce the number of disease organisms in the water and provide a cleaner environment for the fish to recover in. It also removes a lot of the gunk and this means any medication that might be needed can work on treating the fish instead of being wasted killing the pathogens in the gunk.
Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it is added to the tank.

Clean the filter if it hasn't been done in the last 2 weeks. However, if the filter is less than 6 weeks old, do not clean it. Wash the filter materials/ media in a bucket of tank water and re-use them. Tip the bucket of dirty water on the garden/ lawn. Cleaning the filter means less gunk and cleaner water with fewer pathogens.

Increase surface turbulence/ aeration when using salt or medications because they reduce the dissolved oxygen in the water.

Add some salt, (see directions below).

If there's no improvement after a week with daily water changes and salt, or it gets worse during that time, you will need a broad spectrum medication that treats protozoan and bacteria.

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SALT
You can add rock salt (often sold as aquarium salt), sea salt or swimming pool salt to the aquarium at the dose rate of 1 heaped tablespoon per 20 litres of water. If there is no improvement after 48 hours you can double that dose rate so there is 2 heaped tablespoons of salt per 20 litres.

Keep the salt level like this for at least 2 weeks but no longer than 4 weeks otherwise kidney damage can occur. Kidney damage is more likely to occur in fish from soft water (tetras, Corydoras, angelfish, Bettas & gouramis, loaches) that are exposed to high levels of salt for an extended period of time, and is not an issue with livebearers, rainbowfish or other salt tolerant species.

The salt will not affect the beneficial filter bacteria, fish, plants, shrimp or snails.

After you use salt and the fish have recovered, you do a 10% water change each day for a week using only fresh water that has been dechlorinated. Then do a 20% water change each day for a week. Then you can do bigger water changes after that. This dilutes the salt out of the tank slowly so it doesn't harm the fish.

When you do water changes while using salt, you need to treat the new water with salt before adding it to the tank. This will keep the salt level stable in the tank and minimise stress on the fish.

 

[jkflute13]

Have you got any pictures of the fish before this happened?

The white patches on the head look like physical damage, possibly from the rocks.

There is a white patch on the rear half of his body that concerns me. That could be an infection. How long has that been there for?

-------------------
Basic treatment would be the following.
Wipe the inside of the glass down with a clean fish sponge.

Do a 75% water change and gravel clean the substrate every day for a week. The water changes and gravel cleaning will reduce the number of disease organisms in the water and provide a cleaner environment for the fish to recover in. It also removes a lot of the gunk and this means any medication that might be needed can work on treating the fish instead of being wasted killing the pathogens in the gunk.
Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it is added to the tank.

Clean the filter if it hasn't been done in the last 2 weeks. However, if the filter is less than 6 weeks old, do not clean it. Wash the filter materials/ media in a bucket of tank water and re-use them. Tip the bucket of dirty water on the garden/ lawn. Cleaning the filter means less gunk and cleaner water with fewer pathogens.

Increase surface turbulence/ aeration when using salt or medications because they reduce the dissolved oxygen in the water.

Add some salt, (see directions below).

If there's no improvement after a week with daily water changes and salt, or it gets worse during that time, you will need a broad spectrum medication that treats protozoan and bacteria.

-------------------
SALT
You can add rock salt (often sold as aquarium salt), sea salt or swimming pool salt to the aquarium at the dose rate of 1 heaped tablespoon per 20 litres of water. If there is no improvement after 48 hours you can double that dose rate so there is 2 heaped tablespoons of salt per 20 litres.

Keep the salt level like this for at least 2 weeks but no longer than 4 weeks otherwise kidney damage can occur. Kidney damage is more likely to occur in fish from soft water (tetras, Corydoras, angelfish, Bettas & gouramis, loaches) that are exposed to high levels of salt for an extended period of time, and is not an issue with livebearers, rainbowfish or other salt tolerant species.

The salt will not affect the beneficial filter bacteria, fish, plants, shrimp or snails.

After you use salt and the fish have recovered, you do a 10% water change each day for a week using only fresh water that has been dechlorinated. Then do a 20% water change each day for a week. Then you can do bigger water changes after that. This dilutes the salt out of the tank slowly so it doesn't harm the fish.

When you do water changes while using salt, you need to treat the new water with salt before adding it to the tank. This will keep the salt level stable in the tank and minimise stress on the fish.

Thank you for the advice Colin! I was actually able to find a good video of him from December and attached a screenshot of that (I moved my fish to a new tank a bit after that, so that’s why the surroundings look a little different).

The patch on the rear of his body appeared a while ago, you can see it’s in the video I attached. I figured he rubbed up against something in my old tank since it looked like a few missing scales, so I just removed a rougher decoration I had in there at the time because everything else looked normal.

I did want to note for reference that when I do water changes, I do normally clean the filter every or every other water change by washing the media in a bucket of dirty tank water. For media I use a foam filter insert, a bag of Biomax filter media, and a bag of carbon (just wanted to mention this since I’m not using the regular filter cartridges).

I’ll start doing the water changes and continue using aquarium salt, if things don’t improve after a week is there a medication you’d recommend? Additionally, should I remove the rocks from my aquarium in the future and maybe find something not so rough to replace them with?

 

[jkflute13]

I forgot to include this in my original reply, is there a way I can check chlorine levels in my water? I do normally use 1 mL of stress coat per gallon on the new water when I do a water change to help remove chlorine.

 

[Colin_T]

You can buy chlorine test kits from pet shops or online. Shops might have to order one in for you. Check the expiry date on any you get to make sure it hasn't already expired.

I don't know what medications are available to you so look for a broad spectrum medication that treats fungus, bacteria and external protozoan infections. That covers most things and might help if salt doesn't.