Please Help - Poorly Betta!

[JanelleBetta]

I had a new tank, and had it set up for 2-3 weeks before adding my male betta. I checked the water every couple of days before introducing the betta and ammonia, nitrite and nitrate were all 0 and the pH is 6.0, and the temperature was 20 degrees celsius.

I introduced my betta last tuesday and he has been a very active little betta, darting around the tank and greeting me as I approach the tank. I've been feeding him dry food every day (although i've now been told bloodworm is best) and I did a 10% water change on sunday using Interpret tapsafe and ammonia remover and also API stress coat. Now on monday, I came home from work to find that he was between (I don't know if he had lodged himself, or how long he had been there) between 2 large pebbles at the bottom of the tank. I removed all the pebbles and he shot to the top of the tank to take a breath.

Since then, he slowly had white film/cotton appear on a few parts of his body and yesterday I woke up to find him helplessly lying on the bottom of the tank, but every time he saw me he'd shoot to the top of the tank for breath and then swim around for a bit. Today, this white film/cotton has taken over the whole front part of his body and his fins seem 'clamped' so he often does the 'hanging' swim until he hits one of the plastic plants and darts about again. The disease does seem to be shredding away at his fins also and his breathing seems slow and he's just not his usual self.

Can someone please help as I really don't know what to use?? I added 'love fish - anti white spot & parasite' on monday when i saw the white spots appear on his body, but this hasn't seemed to have done anything. The water levels are still all the same, so I am utterly confused

 

[Crossfire]

I had a new tank, and had it set up for 2-3 weeks before adding my male betta. I checked the water every couple of days before introducing the betta and ammonia, nitrite and nitrate were all 0 and the pH is 6.0, and the temperature was 20 degrees celsius.

I introduced my betta last tuesday and he has been a very active little betta, darting around the tank and greeting me as I approach the tank. I've been feeding him dry food every day (although i've now been told bloodworm is best) and I did a 10% water change on sunday using Interpret tapsafe and ammonia remover and also API stress coat. Now on monday, I came home from work to find that he was between (I don't know if he had lodged himself, or how long he had been there) between 2 large pebbles at the bottom of the tank. I removed all the pebbles and he shot to the top of the tank to take a breath.

Since then, he slowly had white film/cotton appear on a few parts of his body and yesterday I woke up to find him helplessly lying on the bottom of the tank, but every time he saw me he'd shoot to the top of the tank for breath and then swim around for a bit. Today, this white film/cotton has taken over the whole front part of his body and his fins seem 'clamped' so he often does the 'hanging' swim until he hits one of the plastic plants and darts about again. The disease does seem to be shredding away at his fins also and his breathing seems slow and he's just not his usual self.

Can someone please help as I really don't know what to use?? I added 'love fish - anti white spot & parasite' on monday when i saw the white spots appear on his body, but this hasn't seemed to have done anything. The water levels are still all the same, so I am utterly confused

It's not whitespot or fungus. Stop treating with the parasitic and fungal meds. It is columnaris, aka Cotton Mouth. A nasty bacterial disease. I just lost my rescued betta to it today

Do you have a Quarantine tank?
Are there any other fish in the tank? Or invertebrates?

You will need to get the temperature to 74 degrees, no higher no less. This is the ideal temperature for the medicine to work without encouraging bacterial growth.

Add some API Aquarium Salt. Not marine salt. The bacteria hates salt.

If it's available, add some almond leaves or blackwater extract to safely lower pH and darken the water. Columnaris hates low pH, and the tannins and vitamins soothe the fish.

Buy a good, wide spectrum antibiotic. Do either:

1) A combonation of Mardel Maracyn and Maracyn-Two

or

2) Treat with API Furan-2

or

3) Treat with Seachem KanaPlex

Follow the instructuins, keep feeding the fish, and since the antiobiotics kill the filter bacteria, you will need to buy ammonia remover. Tetra AmmoniaSafe is good.

Hope you have more luck than I did

 

[JanelleBetta]

Thank you for your help crossfire! Unfortunately, I woke up this morning to find him completely covered and not moving, I'm absolutely devastated

He was a betta on his own in a 15L tank. What is the right level ph for a betta then? I will look at getting a heater pack and try again.

Is there anything else you can suggest to AVOID this happening again rather than dealing with it when it happens? Is there a site I can read on columnaris?

Thank u

 

[Crossfire]

Thank you for your help crossfire! Unfortunately, I woke up this morning to find him completely covered and not moving, I'm absolutely devastated

He was a betta on his own in a 15L tank. What is the right level ph for a betta then? I will look at getting a heater pack and try again.

Is there anything else you can suggest to AVOID this happening again rather than dealing with it when it happens? Is there a site I can read on columnaris?

Thank u

To prevent diseas like this, clean water is a must. At least one water change of 20% or more a week is absolutely necessary. Stats must always be 0 Ammonia, 0 Nitrite, and no more than 50 Nitrate.
pH will not affect chances of getting infected. The fish, since bought locally, will be accostumed to your tap's pH.
Do not mess with the pH, as it will actually cause more harm.

Feed the fish a variety of foods, not just flake. A good quality staple food, with treats given on different days of the week.
Frozen bloodworm, frozen brine shrimp, frozen mysis shrimp, frozen cyclops, cooked and deshelled peas, boiled lettuce, and freeze dried food is also acceptable.

It is also possible the fish had the disease already when you bought it.

 

[falcon1]

Most fish like it pH neutral: 7.0

 

[Crossfire]

Most fish like it pH neutral: 7.0

That is false. Some fish from blackwater habitats enjoy pH at 6.2. Most African fish and cichlids love pHs above 8.
Any fish can adapt to any pH as long as it is not extreme low or high.

 

[snazy]

Sorry for your fish. It seems you hadn't cycled your tank before introducing fish. In a non-cycled tank ammonia,nitrIte and nitrAte will be 0 as there's no ammonia source in the tank to kick off the cycle and start growing ammonia eating bacteria, which in a couple of weeks will grow nitrIte eating bacteria and then in another 2-3 weeks enough bacteria will grow to convert ammonia to nitrite and nitrIte to nitrAte.
Once you introduce fish or ammonia from a bottle(fishless cycle), then the cycle kicks off and it takes in most cases 3-4 weeks minimum. If the tank was cycled, ammonia and nitrIte will be 0, but these two products get converted to nitrAte, which rises in time and is removed by water changes or if the tank is heavily planted, the plants will eat most of it. NitrAte is non-toxic to fish, unlike ammonia and nitrIte. Just running the tank for 2-3 weeks will not cycle it and is a waiste of time. What happened is that once you added the betta, you introduced ammonia to the tank. Since the tank is not cycled, there's no beneficial bacteria to convert this toxic element. So the betta slowly poisoned itself in ammonia. The finrot you saw is an immediate reacton to the ammonia burning the fish.
From Tuesday to Sunday you did not do any water change and then you did just 10%. You should have been doing 80-90% water changes everyday to remove all the ammonia and its product nitrIte from the tank until it cycles. Cycled tank means ammonia and nitrIte at constant 0 and nitrAte rising.

 

[falcon1]

Most fish like it pH neutral: 7.0

That is false. Some fish from blackwater habitats enjoy pH at 6.2. Most African fish and cichlids love pHs above 8.
Any fish can adapt to any pH as long as it is not extreme low or high.

If you were setting up a tank for an unknown fish and you had to guess the pH you would say 6.2??? Fish that are from blackwater habitats are happy in 7.0 as are African cichlids. But africans are no good in 6.2 and fish such as tetras are no good in 8.0 like the cichlids are best in.

 

[Essjay]

Strictly speaking, you shouldn't be setting up a tank for an unknown fish, you should be setting up a tank for a fish you have researched and know what its requirements are

Apart from a few soft acid water fish and hard alkaline water fish, a pH between the upper 6's and the mid 7's will be fine. Aiming for exactly 7.0 is not necessary. 7.0 just happens to be the pH of pure water at 25 deg C, there's nothing magical about that value. Very few natural water sources have a pH of 7.0 as they are not pure water; they have minerals dissolved in them, even the softest water has some, which alter the pH.
In fact, the hardness of the water is more important to fish than the pH.

 

[snazy]

Strictly speaking, you shouldn't be setting up a tank for an unknown fish, you should be setting up a tank for a fish you have researched and know what its requirements are

Apart from a few soft acid water fish and hard alkaline water fish, a pH between the upper 6's and the mid 7's will be fine. Aiming for exactly 7.0 is not necessary. 7.0 just happens to be the pH of pure water at 25 deg C, there's nothing magical about that value. Very few natural water sources have a pH of 7.0 as they are not pure water; they have minerals dissolved in them, even the softest water has some, which alter the pH.
In fact, the hardness of the water is more important to fish than the pH.

I would do the opposite. I would set up the tank and based on my normal tap parameters, stock appropriate fish that can live in it. Lazy

Also, the OP's tank was set at 20C. This is way below betta fish requirements too, besides that the tank was not cycled.

 

[Essjay]

That's sort of what I was trying to say

I'll rephrase it. "Strictly speaking, you shouldn't be setting up a tank for an unknown fish, you should be setting up a tank for a fish you have researched and know what its requirements are so you know it suits your water"

That's better