Betta Fish with Velvet, help?

HI everyone, I unfortunately don't have a quarantine tank up. I bought three otocinclus catfish and added them to my complete cycled aquarium the other day. Yesterday, I noticed my betta fish has developed malaise and just lays at the bottom. He still does eat, but he would just lay at the bottom. I noticed tonight he has gold dust all over his scales on the side of his body and his head. His fins are also getting ragged. I am pretty sure this is velvet. How do I treat this? I'm attaching photos now. None of the other fish in the aquarium are showing any signs of disease, which leads me to believe that it is only affecting the betta.

Update: I have removed the betta and put him in a large glass vase with some bettafix and I have added a dose of malachite green, as well as a pinch of table salt (I have always read that even though table salt has iodine, a small amount won't hurt the fish, as long as you don't use it all the time to treat the tank.) I tried to fine Mardel Coppersafe but the only store open at this hour was a Walmart so I had no choice but to buy malachite green there... Malachite green will kill the velvet once it detaches from the betta, right?

Please help! I've never dealt with velvet before!

 

The most common treatments against the velvet disease are based on copper salts, but it is not always good to do because not all the fish tolerate the copper. Alternatives are the salts of quinine or blue of methylene. Increase the temperature of the water can help to the treatment, since it accelerates the biological cycle of the parasite. I hope your Betta makes it, and I really hope it did not have the opportunity to spread.

 

The most common treatments against the velvet disease are based on copper salts, but it is not always good to do because not all the fish tolerate the copper. Alternatives are the salts of quinine or blue of methylene. Increase the temperature of the water can help to the treatment, since it accelerates the biological cycle of the parasite. I hope your Betta makes it, and I really hope it did not have the opportunity to spread.

So does the malachite green help?

 

Yes, Malachite Green will help to kill the parasites that cause velvet. But it can also become toxic in high heat or in low pH. I assume you transferred some tank water into the QT tank. What are the parameters and temperature?

As this is a parasitic disease, do not stop treatment just because you can no longer see it on the fish. I would even go so far as to complete the treatment, do a very large water change, and then raise the heat to ensure all the parasites are gone before returning to the main tank.

 

Hey thanks for the replies. I am sort of strapped for cash right now so I just have the betta out of the community tank and in a large bowl. No other fish is showing signs of infection thank God! I'm wondering how long to do the treatment? I'm doing water changes once daily for the bowl. I think the betta just got stressed because I made a lot of changes to the tank recently by adding new plants and fish.

 

Woke up this morning to find the betta had jumped out of the hospital bow and died. RIP

 

aww, sorry.

 

I'm so sorry