Out Of Ideas...please Help!

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Mammabe

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Jun 14, 2011
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Kemptville, ON
Hi There,
 
Does anyone know what it means if there is a cloudy film on the bottom of the bowl and on the ornaments?  it looks like my betta is shedding - his scales are coming off or are red, he looks like he has been stripped of his scales almost and his skin is raw.  He first started scratching on rocks so I thought he might have a parasite, I put a tsp. of aquarium salt in his 1 gallon bowl, disolved first of course, and left him for a week.  He didn't seem to improve and kept scratching, so I changed his water and started him on .05 ml of melafix for 7 days, still nothing and seemingly getting worse with what looks like black stuff caked on his head.  I changed the water again then I tried pimafix for a week thinking maybe it is a fungul infection, same dosage - still no improvement.  This poor guy is going to die of toxin poisoning soon with all the things I am trying.
 
Anyone have any idea what is going on?  I change the water every 5 days on a regular basis, this is before he started showing signs of something gone bad and still do and the only thing I added was a betta bed that was different when the scratching started... I will try to get a pic if necessary.  Let me know what you think.
 
Thank you!

Perhaps I should post this in the emergency section.  Still waiting for a reply ):
 
Ok first thing I see is that you are keeping him in a 1 gallon bowl and only doing water changes every 5 days.  You need to be doing 100% water changes EVERY day.  The ammonia builds up extremely fast in a container of that size and he is basically being poisoned by his own waste.  
 
Do you have a heater?  What is the temperature of his bowl?  How do you keep track of the temperature?
 
Bettas require a heater (unless you live near the equator) to keep the water temperature steady at around 78F-84F.  Having the water any cooler causes the betta's immune system to grow weak.  This causes the fish to be more likely to get sick from things it might otherwise have been able to fight off.
 
Medications that end in the word "fix" (Melafix, Pimafix, Bettafix) are not good for bettas and other labyrinth fish (gourmanis, paradise fish) because it contains tea tree oil which can cause issues with them being able to breathe.
 
Before I can say what might be wrong with your betta, it is best that I get a pic of the fish and of the bowl he calls home.
 
My recommendation at this point is to get a bigger container to move your betta to(at least 2.5 gallons).  Make sure you have a heater and thermometer to keep the temperature at least 82F.  Make sure and keep his water very clean with water changes no less than every other day (100% in a bigger container) and then we can see what else he might need from there.
 

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