Betta fish immune systems

Hello! After the death of one of my bettas, I’m looking for a new inhabitant for his half of the divided 10 gallon tank that he lived in. Throughout my fish’s life he lived in 5 gallons of water, cycled, heated, and filled with live plants. The conditions were practically perfect. However, he was always sick and as soon as one disease went away he’d have a case of fin rot or popeye or some other issue. On the other hand, my female betta who shared the same tank and was thus exposed to the same bacteria in the water and also shared the same water parameters, has never gotten sick or showed any sort of symptom of sickness or discomfort. I’m beginning to think that my male betta (the one who died) had some sort of genetic issue. He was a blue halfmoon butterfly betta from Petco whereas my female was a red halfmoon female from PetSmart. Do you think my bettas problems were related to genetics at all? And if it is how can I avoid this again? Are certain colors, tail types, or genders related to poor immune systems, or is just a luck of the draw sort of thing?

 

Short tail bettas tends to be healthier or have a healthier genetics than long tails such as wild bettas, Halfmoon Plakat bettas.

even viel tail bettas are solid too

 

He may have just had a bacterial infection that was never cleared.

 

My last fish that I got before the buddy I have now was a disaster. He hardly ever ate (I bought 3 different brands of food), and within a few months, he very suddenly got clamped fins, lesions all over him (cause unknown), and finally dropsy, and he died within 1.5 weeks. The betta I had before him was extremely healthy, and my current betta just recovered from a sickness (though he's still in recovery, it seems). I had gotten that very sick betta from PetSmart, and I had also bought snails there that had all died within 3 weeks after I bought them, so I think they were all just inherently sick from something going on at PetSmart. It's sad, and I was devestated every time, but yes. I do think inherent health issues are possible.

 

Sounds very much like a bacterial infection.

Unfortunately, the antibacterial treatments in the hobby rarely work so you end up with fish that are sick their whole lives.