Unwell Betta, Please Help

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Thank you for the reply! For the salt bath, would I just use regular aquarium salt? And cI usually add about a teaspoon to his tank with every water change but Iā€™m not sure if thatā€™s a good idea anymore. Also, do you know how parasites could get in the tank?
Yeah, regular aquarium salt.

As for general salt dosing, I view it this way:
Some people strongly believe that salt shouldn't be in aquarium because it's not in natural environment, can cause liver damage in long run, etc.
While this is true for some extent, salt also provides benefit of impeding bacterial/fungal infections by inducing fish to produce more slime. Thus any cuts or injuries are harder for bacteria/fungus to attack due to slime layer.
Also: a lot of fresh water bacteria are unable to survive in water with even small amounts of salts and other bacteria/fungus have hard time spreading and multiplying.

So the question becomes what is more beneficial. A lot like the cleaning products I have in the cabinet. None of them are good for me and many are straight up poisonous and can damage my organs, skin, get into my body as harmful toxins.
But I use them all the time. Why? Because as harmful they are I would probably get a lot more sick from all the bacteria and possibly die due to having a small cut with knife I use to cut meat and never clean with those chemicals that are not good for me.
Sure, I can open the windows and get fresh air or change water in the tank but you will have bacteria, fungus, etc present in the house/tank regardless. Just waiting for opportune moment to strike.
And just like the house so is the case with tank: smaller the space you have to live, prepare, leave rubbish, go to toilet = harder it will be to avoid bacteria without doing something about it.

That's my view. A lot of people just repeat stuff without putting much thought into circumstances, applying and weighing pros and cons, etc.
Like: You should never use cleaning products because the toxins get into your body and cause long term damage. True, but generalization that isn't beneficial in wider context.

Parasites can get into the tank in many ways: they came with fish, with you putting your hand into water, insects, etc. Depending on parasite. Most likely came with fish/plants.
 
Then I really donā€™t know where the parasite would come from
Not all parasites strike immediately. You can have fish that looks healthy for a year while parasites grow inside and multiply until there is enough of them to start drawing more nutrients than fish can eat. Then it takes a while for fish to deteriorate.

Sometimes fish can have parasitic worm and live normally, only having issue if it gets attacked by something else like bacterial infection. And it becomes too much for fish to handle and it deteriorates quickly.
Even if it could easily handle either one of parasite or bacterial infection on it's own.
So the parasite could have come with the fish a year ago
 
Yeah, regular aquarium salt.

As for general salt dosing, I view it this way:
Some people strongly believe that salt shouldn't be in aquarium because it's not in natural environment, can cause liver damage in long run, etc.
While this is true for some extent, salt also provides benefit of impeding bacterial/fungal infections by inducing fish to produce more slime. Thus any cuts or injuries are harder for bacteria/fungus to attack due to slime layer.
Also: a lot of fresh water bacteria are unable to survive in water with even small amounts of salts and other bacteria/fungus have hard time spreading and multiplying.

So the question becomes what is more beneficial. A lot like the cleaning products I have in the cabinet. None of them are good for me and many are straight up poisonous and can damage my organs, skin, get into my body as harmful toxins.
But I use them all the time. Why? Because as harmful they are I would probably get a lot more sick from all the bacteria and possibly die due to having a small cut with knife I use to cut meat and never clean with those chemicals that are not good for me.
Sure, I can open the windows and get fresh air or change water in the tank but you will have bacteria, fungus, etc present in the house/tank regardless. Just waiting for opportune moment to strike.
And just like the house so is the case with tank: smaller the space you have to live, prepare, leave rubbish, go to toilet = harder it will be to avoid bacteria without doing something about it.

That's my view. A lot of people just repeat stuff without putting much thought into circumstances, applying and weighing pros and cons, etc.
Like: You should never use cleaning products because the toxins get into your body and cause long term damage. True, but generalization that isn't beneficial in wider context.

Parasites can get into the tank in many ways: they came with fish, with you putting your hand into water, insects, etc. Depending on parasite. Most likely came with fish/plants.
Salt is bad period
 
Think about us if salt is important why doesnā€™t it exist in natural freshwater habitats,and if you keep the tank clean salts benefit are redundant
I didn't really want to hijack the thread and usually explaining science to people who have made up their mind already is useless but anyway, I'll try and explain:

No living thing can survive without salt!
Every river, lake, etc has some salt concentration. And a lot of them are a lot higher then 1 tablespoon per gallon. Rivers, lakes with close to 0% salt concentration are extremely rare. Even the filtered tap water usually has some salt in it.

All mammals, fish, invertebrates, birds must have about 9g of salt per liter in their blood at all times, or they die; from both too little and too much salt. And they have to replace salt they use up every day.

Fish have 2 different mechanism for dealing with salt.
Freshwater fish = work very hard to concentrate salt from low salinity environment to be able to survive. At very low salinity their kidneys have to work hard to filter out enough water to concentrate salt enough salt to survive. At water salinity that matches their salt level of 9g per L, they don't have to filter out water.
But they cannot filter out excess salt from water and salt concentrations of more then 9g per L will kill them!

Marine Fish - They have mechanism to filter out excess salt from water through gills as Salt water has about 4 times more salt concentration then their blood salt concentration of 9g per L.
But they don't posses ability to concentrate salt like freshwater fish and will die if salt content is less then 9g per L.

The reason for this is that all fish, mammals, birds evolved in oceans when ocean salinity was 9g per L. Fish that stayed in oceans had to adapt to increasing water salinity and freshwater fish had to adapt to low salinity of rivers and lakes as they migrated into new environments.

Most marine fish and your tropical freshwater fish fall into this category. They are called Stenohaline and have only one mechanism but have lost ability to do the other. Meaning they can only survive in the salinity range their internal salt regulating mechanism allows.

Now you have fish that have retained both sets of salt regulating mechanisms.
Those would be fish like: Molly, Guppy, Platy, Kilifish, Salmon, etc. and any brakish water fish.
They can inhabit freshwater, brakish water or marine water environment. Because they can switch between 2 salt regulating mechanisms (given enough time to adjust to changing salt level.

The mammals, birds, etc. have completely different salt regulating mechanism and one cannot just apply human or horse salt logic on fish like many on this site do.

There you go. That is biology and science behind salt argument. Most of the stuff people say about kidney damage, there is no salt in freshwater, etc is just not true, myths or logical fallacy conclusions.
 
I didn't really want to hijack the thread and usually explaining science to people who have made up their mind already is useless but anyway, I'll try and explain:

No living thing can survive without salt!
Every river, lake, etc has some salt concentration. And a lot of them are a lot higher then 1 tablespoon per gallon. Rivers, lakes with close to 0% salt concentration are extremely rare. Even the filtered tap water usually has some salt in it.

All mammals, fish, invertebrates, birds must have about 9g of salt per liter in their blood at all times, or they die; from both too little and too much salt. And they have to replace salt they use up every day.

Fish have 2 different mechanism for dealing with salt.
Freshwater fish = work very hard to concentrate salt from low salinity environment to be able to survive. At very low salinity their kidneys have to work hard to filter out enough water to concentrate salt enough salt to survive. At water salinity that matches their salt level of 9g per L, they don't have to filter out water.
But they cannot filter out excess salt from water and salt concentrations of more then 9g per L will kill them!

Marine Fish - They have mechanism to filter out excess salt from water through gills as Salt water has about 4 times more salt concentration then their blood salt concentration of 9g per L.
But they don't posses ability to concentrate salt like freshwater fish and will die if salt content is less then 9g per L.

The reason for this is that all fish, mammals, birds evolved in oceans when ocean salinity was 9g per L. Fish that stayed in oceans had to adapt to increasing water salinity and freshwater fish had to adapt to low salinity of rivers and lakes as they migrated into new environments.

Most marine fish and your tropical freshwater fish fall into this category. They are called Stenohaline and have only one mechanism but have lost ability to do the other. Meaning they can only survive in the salinity range their internal salt regulating mechanism allows.

Now you have fish that have retained both sets of salt regulating mechanisms.
Those would be fish like: Molly, Guppy, Platy, Kilifish, Salmon, etc. and any brakish water fish.
They can inhabit freshwater, brakish water or marine water environment. Because they can switch between 2 salt regulating mechanisms (given enough time to adjust to changing salt level.

The mammals, birds, etc. have completely different salt regulating mechanism and one cannot just apply human or horse salt logic on fish like many on this site do.

There you go. That is biology and science behind salt argument. Most of the stuff people say about kidney damage, there is no salt in freshwater, etc is just not true, myths or logical fallacy
I only agree to your first sentence the rest is just illogical,all your fish probably will get or have liver damage with you as their owner
 
I only agree to your first sentence the rest is just illogical,all your fish probably will get or have liver damage with you as their owner
Like I said: explaining science to people who have made up their mind already is useless most of the time. And so it was this time too :)
 
Like I said: explaining science to people who have made up their mind already is useless most of the time. And so it was this time too :)
Stick to fish keeping your science is just flawed but yes itā€™s is useless to talk about this to a person like you also we are diverting from the postā€™s question
 
Stick to fish keeping your science is just flawed but yes itā€™s is useless to talk about this to a person like you also we are diverting from the postā€™s question
Haha
Read up on osmotic pressure in aquatic organisms and why they stuck salt water drip in your veins when you get into hospital emergency department and then we can talk about who's science is flawed ;)


Have a good day (or whatever your current time is)
 
Haha
Read up on osmotic pressure in aquatic organisms and why they stuck salt water drip in your veins when you get into hospital emergency department and then we can talk about who's science is flawed ;)


Have a good day (or whatever your current time is)
Big word that you donā€™t understand,and thanks I am having a great day
 
An article if anyone would like to read it.
As it is rather long I will note that the salt we use in aquariums to treat infections or nitrite poisoning is just sodium chloride, not marine salts or mineral salts. Also that hardness minerals (mainly calcium chloride and magnesium chloride) are utilised during osmoregulation.
 

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