Please Help With Sick Betta ...

[Galanta]

Hi! I have gotten some help on this on the Betta forum, but have not gotten any replies there in a couple of days and am really worried about the fish. My friend and I both got our first bettas about 2 months ago. I read up on a bunch of the care stuff on the net and my betta is perfectly healthy, constantly active, making bubblenests, etc.
However, my friend's betta nearly died. When I saw him about 10 days ago, I took him away from her to salvage him. She had him in a 2 gal bowl, but she kept him in distilled water and at temperature of 69 degrees and probably was not religious about the water changes. I gradually raised the temperature and changed him to treated water, but his color was totally faded and he just floated near the surface without moving and without reacting to anything going on around him. I don't know how long he had not eaten while he was with her, but I had him for five days (and nearly lost him) before I finally (with helpful hints from Betta forum and LFS) got him to eat. The only thing he eventually responded to were live bloodworms. He started eating regularly last Friday and immediately his color started returning and he got more active. I kept trying to put him back onto pellets, but he would never eat more than one in a day and he still looked super skinny, so for the time being he is still eating worms daily.
As his color returned, I was able to see that he had ick. (I also took him to the LFS to confirm this). I got a medication called "Aquari-sol". As a note - he is currently temporarily in a 3/4 gal "hospital bowl" and I am changing the water daily to make sure there is no ammonia (I use tap water treated with Bettasafe and an added level teaspoon of aquarium salt per gallon. The water sits ready in my office for at least a day, so that the temperature is identical to the water he is in.) I originally set him up like this as I successfuly "fixed" a severly constipated betta like this and I was not expecting him to be confined to a small bowl for this long. He is in a quiet corner with a constant water temperature of about 79 (don't have any way to raise it higher : ( )
Anyways - I had never medicated a betta before, so out of caution I only used half the strength on the first day. 24 hours later there was no visible change in the ick and the fish seemed fine, so I decided to use it at the recommended strength, since I had not found any mention anywhere that this would be harmful to a betta. He was on full strength of the medication for 2 days. His color started fading, he developed "stress stripes" and became listless again. He developed flourescent blue/green spots in his eyes and the edge of his gills and other parts of his gills started turning a transparent/flourescent blue.
After I saw him worsening for the second day, I put the medication back to half strength. He has been back on that for 24 hours, but there has been no improvement. In fact he has gotten even worse with all color now faded away to his basic silver color. He still eats with great appetite, but then immediately goes catatonic again. He passing through his food and is not constipated.
I don't know how to post pictures here, but here is a link to a few shots I took.

http/www.flickr.com/photos/39684179@N05/...57620092828913/

The first 3 photos were taken on Saturday night, just after he had been on 1/2 strenght medication for 24 hours. He had good color and was much more active. The last photo shows how he looked like on Monday night. Now, 24 hours later, he looks even worse, paled down to a sheer silver with a slight blue tinge.

At first I thought that it was the heavy medication that was stressing him out, but even with it reduced back to half, he has not improved in 24 hours and in fact seems to be getting worse and worse.

Does anybody have an idea what is going on with him or what I can do to help him?

I have invested A LOT of time (and money) into trying to salvage this fella and I really want him to make it.

Any advice would be most appreciated as I have NO idea what to do now.

 

[WILDER]

So you have no aeration in the bowl.
When you add meds you must add an airstone, as med reduce 02 in the water.

What his breathing like.
Does the gills or body have excess mucas.
is there a bluish film on the fish.

Soak his food in garlic juice to stimulate his appetite and boost his immune system.

You will have to take him off the bloodworms as he needs his pellets for vitamins.
Feeding to many bloodworms can make fish bloat up if over fed.
Try some brime shrimp and daphnia.

 

[Galanta]

THANK YOU!! Will get aeration stone. Breathing is not labored or anything. In fact, when he gets like this, I cannot discern any movement from his gills at all. He floats with his mouth close to the surface. In the rare occasions that he moves around, he gulps air from the surface. No mucus or film on the body at all, scales look clean and clear. Have not noticed anything unusual about the gills (right now he has them closed, so can't really see the inside edges).

Got it on the food and will handle. On soaking in garlic juice, do you soak it straight in the juice or juice dilluted in a little water? Don't know if you can "overdose" with garlic.

Is it OK for me to use Aquari-sol at full strength? Would like to up the dosage again to make sure ick is fully handled.

 

[WILDER]

I wouldn't use the full dose with no airstone for aeration.
I think its lack of 02 with the med thats making him ill.
You just soak his food in garlic juice. Then just add it to the tank.

 

[Galanta]

Thanks. Once aeration stone is in place I can go to full strength right away providing I start with fresh water, right? Just making sure ... : )

 

[WILDER]

Yes you can add full dose now you have an airstone.
If no improvment get back to the board.

 

[Galanta]

Thanks. Was not able to get airstone on an immediate basis and due to him deteriorating by the hour, I just changed out the water to same water without any medication in an effort to save him. He has been in the fresh medication free water for 5 hours and still seems to be getting worse. He no longer stays by the surface but just sits at the bottom, kind of tilting.

I don't think this has anything to with the medication as I have reduced the medication from full strenght to 0 over the past 48 hours and he has still been getting worse.

I am about to try the garlic pellets.

Do you have ANY idea of what else could be going on with him? I am really baffled - and fear I am very close to losing him ... : (

 

[Galanta]

Oh boy! He would not eat the garlic juice pellets. In fact he is refusing all food. His eyes have turned yellow/brown and cloudy. I scooped him into a small travel container so that I could more easily coax him to eat and looking at him from very close it looks as if there are is a little strand of fuzz on one of his eyeballs. His breathing is very labored. Twice not he has gone upside down and then yanked himself upright again. Is there ANYBODY who has an idea what I can do?

 

[Galanta]

Never mind. He just died. Though I don't know if in the end he died from ick, because I was reducing his medication or if he died from something else. Can somebody explain to me what went wrong, so I can make sure this does not happen with any other fish?

 

[LauraFrog]

Oh, I'm sorry... I know how hard you've been fighting to save him.

It sounds to me like a result of the care he received before and not your fault. Might take a bit of explaining, but I'll try.
Some water has minerals (salts of calcium, magnesium, sodium etc.) dissolved in it. Water with a lot of these salts is 'hard'. Water with few is 'soft'. These salts act like buffers, which means the water will resist a change in pH. Pure water - such as distilled water - contains none of these buffering salts. So a tiny amount of acid or base added to it will raise the pH significantly.

Ammonia (NH3) is produced constantly, by all fish. It's a respiratory byproduct and most of their waste quickly breaks down to ammonia in the water. In a 2 gallon bowl with water changes not being carried out frequently enough, this would build up extremely quickly. In distilled water (with no buffering capacity) the problem would be even worse. Ammonia is a base, and in a slightly acidic solution it tends to remain in ionic form (NH4+) which is slightly less toxic. Without buffering the pH would rise quickly and all the ammonia remain in its toxic form.

On top of this, it sounds like he was kept cold as well. Ammonia in sufficient quantities causes permanent damage to the gills, and cold depletes the immune system. Both ammonia and cold are stressors. Diseases attack fish that are weakened or stressed. It's unsurprising that he got sick.

And then, due to his overloaded immune system, despite the best care you could give him he just wasn't strong enough to pull through. So long without eating properly and with exposure to cold and ammonia is likely to result in multi organ failure. The way he died (the listlessness, floating and loss of interest in surroundings or food) sounds awfully like a failure of several body systems at once, and is the way that a lot of rescued fish 'go' in the end. They may be fine for a couple of months but in a lot of cases the past catches up to them. (Pet stores have a lot to answer for.)
Also, the damage to his gills by ammonia would have made it even harder for him to cope with reduced oxygen levels caused by medication.

I'm sorry to hear you lost him, it's never nice to lose a fish. Especially when you try so hard and hope so much that they're going to pull through. I promise you, it's not your fault. There's nothing you can really do in a lot of cases like this.

 

[WILDER]

You tryed your best.
Bless Him.
R.I.P.