Can someone please identify this as a bacterial or fungal growth? From a light microscope slide

[Fae]

Flower my betta is chronically sick. Most recently, he's been having fin rot. Daily I use either merbromin, hydrogen peroxide watered down, or methylblue to swab off the rotted parts of fin. It appears as white cottony tufts, only on fin tips. There was what appeared to be white film growing on his face, but that cleared up.

Since first sign of illness, I took the few cherry shrimps and snails out, and did a really good gravel vac. He just finished 2 treatments of kanaplex and furan 2, over the course of two weeks. It didn't do much for the fin rot, but helped the slime growing on his face.

Anyway, I have a cheap light microscope that I don't know how to properly use. I put his rotted fin that came off on it in some tank water and this is what I saw on 4x and 10x







And here's a short video showing a weird thing bumpin around, no idea what it is

New video by fae bugz

And a bad flash image of what it looks like not under the microscope



I know I didn't mount them properly or anything (not sure how to), but I'm hoping this is enough to at least identify if I'm dealing with a fungus or bacteria? I don't want to just throw meds at poor Flower

Edit: oh yea params are 0/0/0 ph 7.2 in his 5.5, temperature is around 78-80 usually but I lowered it to 75-78 since he got sick. Sand substrate, planted, filter is aqua clear 10 with restricted inflow and slightly baffled outflow plus a lightly bubbling airstone. Lack of good water exchange may have contributed to his recent infection because I tried adding a somewhat large decoration which pretty much put a halt on flow

 

[1Sushi1]

Flower my betta is chronically sick. Most recently, he's been having fin rot. Daily I use either merbromin, hydrogen peroxide watered down, or methylblue to swab off the rotted parts of fin. It appears as white cottony tufts, only on fin tips. There was what appeared to be white film growing on his face, but that cleared up.

Since first sign of illness, I took the few cherry shrimps and snails out, and did a really good gravel vac. He just finished 2 treatments of kanaplex and furan 2, over the course of two weeks. It didn't do much for the fin rot, but helped the slime growing on his face.

Anyway, I have a cheap light microscope that I don't know how to properly use. I put his rotted fin that came off on it in some tank water and this is what I saw on 4x and 10x

View attachment 776452

View attachment 776453

View attachment 776451

And here's a short video showing a weird thing bumpin around, no idea what it is

New video by fae bugz

And a bad flash image of what it looks like not under the microscope

View attachment 776454

I know I didn't mount them properly or anything (not sure how to), but I'm hoping this is enough to at least identify if I'm dealing with a fungus or bacteria? I don't want to just throw meds at poor Flower

Edit: oh yea params are 0/0/0 ph 7.2 in his 5.5, temperature is around 78-80 usually but I lowered it to 75-78 since he got sick. Sand substrate, planted, filter is aqua clear 10 with restricted inflow and slightly baffled outflow plus a lightly bubbling airstone. Lack of good water exchange may have contributed to his recent infection because I tried adding a somewhat large decoration which pretty much put a halt on flow

That's pretty cool that you did that!! IDK what it is but I'm curious to know if you found out! I have a microscope and want to do that but don't even know what I'd be looking at! I'm a little surprised to see no comments!

 

[Fae]

That's pretty cool that you did that!! IDK what it is but I'm curious to know if you found out! I have a microscope and want to do that but don't even know what I'd be looking at! I'm a little surprised to see no comments!

Thank you for the enthusiasm! Someone on Reddit responded (I posted there as well) and told me that this wasn't enough to identify it >.>

But I can give you the run down on what happened anyway. Also, it's fun to look at things from your fish on a light microscope lol. No idea what I'm looking at either but it's still cool. It's helpful to see whether something is alive at least. You can look up pictures of some organisms and add the magnification you're wanting to see, like "columnaris light microscope 40x" and occasionally you'll find an accurate reference

So this ended up being a fungal growth that was attacking live tissue. Flower unfortunately passed not long after this post (SIP I miss you buddy), and there was sadly nothing I could have done. He was sickly from the start, and I believe he had myxobacteriosis- which is fish tuberculosis, along with the poor genetic health from being inbred.

He got chronic columnaris infections, he was sick more often than not. I think he must have had some immune disorder since he would get sick from everything. Sleeping in a tiny bit of mulm, he would wake up with a fungal growth on the fin that was against it. It's amazing he kept on pushing for so long.

I miss him every day. My other bettas just aren't the same. I swore I would never buy another pet store betta since they're so inbred and have so many issues, so after Flower died I found Frank's bettas. He's a breeder and conservationist in Thailand, and he catches wild bettas and breeds them in a healthy way. I bought a Betta imbellis male from him, and while he's very healthy and spicy... He's just not the same. Flower was so awesome. We had such a connection :'(

 

[1Sushi1]

Thank you for the enthusiasm! Someone on Reddit responded (I posted there as well) and told me that this wasn't enough to identify it >.>

But I can give you the run down on what happened anyway. Also, it's fun to look at things from your fish on a light microscope lol. No idea what I'm looking at either but it's still cool. It's helpful to see whether something is alive at least. You can look up pictures of some organisms and add the magnification you're wanting to see, like "columnaris light microscope 40x" and occasionally you'll find an accurate reference

So this ended up being a fungal growth that was attacking live tissue. Flower unfortunately passed not long after this post (SIP I miss you buddy), and there was sadly nothing I could have done. He was sickly from the start, and I believe he had myxobacteriosis- which is fish tuberculosis, along with the poor genetic health from being inbred.

He got chronic columnaris infections, he was sick more often than not. I think he must have had some immune disorder since he would get sick from everything. Sleeping in a tiny bit of mulm, he would wake up with a fungal growth on the fin that was against it. It's amazing he kept on pushing for so long.

I miss him every day. My other bettas just aren't the same. I swore I would never buy another pet store betta since they're so inbred and have so many issues, so after Flower died I found Frank's bettas. He's a breeder and conservationist in Thailand, and he catches wild bettas and breeds them in a healthy way. I bought a Betta imbellis male from him, and while he's very healthy and spicy... He's just not the same. Flower was so awesome. We had such a connection :'(

Thanks for the info! I'll have to check out That breeder for when the time comes. Im sorry about Flower and how you miss him. I get it though. Bettas are cool like that! My first Betta was named Richard because he was a total d. Haven't had great luck with Bettas yet. The one I have now has some kind of fungus I think and I can't quite get rid of it. It's been going on for at least 3 months now. Besides how blotchy and yucky he looks you would think he was fine. Active and hungry. I've tried several different ways to treat him but yesterday I decided to bring out the big guns. I just whipped up a batch of food (1 tbsp of Bug Bites) combined with Kanaplex, Metroplex & Focus then soaked that in Garllic Guard. He's on day 2 of that and this is the first time he actually eats the medicated food! Keeping the food in fridge. Fingers crossed!

 

[Fae]

Thanks for the info! I'll have to check out That breeder for when the time comes. Im sorry about Flower and how you miss him. I get it though. Bettas are cool like that! My first Betta was named Richard because he was a total d. Haven't had great luck with Bettas yet. The one I have now has some kind of fungus I think and I can't quite get rid of it. It's been going on for at least 3 months now. Besides how blotchy and yucky he looks you would think he was fine. Active and hungry. I've tried several different ways to treat him but yesterday I decided to bring out the big guns. I just whipped up a batch of food (1 tbsp of Bug Bites) combined with Kanaplex, Metroplex & Focus then soaked that in Garllic Guard. He's on day 2 of that and this is the first time he actually eats the medicated food! Keeping the food in fridge. Fingers crossed!

Richard sounds awesome! Bettas are such angry Bois, surprisingly tho I think the females are angrier lol

If you post some pics of your betta, I might be able to help tell you what's going on with it. I'm somewhat familiar with it now after all that with Flower.

Here's Cassis, my imbellis



In full colours:



He's camera shy since I took pictures immediately preceding applying medicine to his lips twice. He's smart!