Help! Betta Continuously Ripping His Fins!

I am in dire need of help with my betta. Over the past month and a half I’ve had him, his fins keep getting ripped, progressively worse and worse each time. I don’t see any symptoms of fin rot, but I’m not sure if it’s some sort of other disease or not.

When I first got him, I placed him in a 1.4 gallon aqua-ponics tank, which was heated. After I read that this was too small for him (and after his dorsal fin mysteriously ripped), I got a 3.5 gallon tank and moved him into that. The new tank is heated and filtered.

However, not long after I moved him into the new tank and the first rip was starting to heal up, he got a new rip on the top of his tail fin. I thought it may have been the rock I had put in the tank, that maybe it was too sharp for his fins, so I took the rock out last night. This morning, however, I woke up to my betta sitting in the bottom corner of the tank, and when he finally got up and swam around, I could see that the majority of his fins were now ripped.

I really need some help figuring out what happened and how to stop it from happening again. My tank is 3.5 gal., filtered, and heated. It has two plants in it (one live Java Fern, one fake silk plant) and three moss balls. Since the tank is uncycled, I do 30% water changes every day to keep down ammonia, and use StressCoat+ as my dechlorinator.

I’ll include some pictures of his fin ripping progression.

Day 1:


1 Month:


A few days ago:


Today:

 

That does look a bit like rot... I would run him through some antibiotics and make sure he isn't bored in case he is nipping

 

What antibiotics would you recommend? I don’t have much money right now, so I might not be able to get any And I’m planning on filing down his old rock tonight and putting it back in the tank so he’ll hopefully be less bored

 

If you think any of his decorations have the potential for tearing his fins you can always do the nylon test. Basically just take women's pantyhose and run the decoration down the pantyhose and if it's snags anything then it can tear a fin

I've heard good things about kordon rapid cure. Apparently it's easily found at Walmart it's not too expensive and it works really well

 

Before trying meds, I would recommend making sure his water is perfect, by doing partial water changes every day or every other day. Clean water can sometimes be the most beneficial! Also salt can be helpful, though I don't personal know a ton about it

 

I managed to kill two bettas with salt so I don't usually recommend it. And if you read the original post, it says that he's in the process of cycling his tank and doing 30% water changes every day. Yes, he could slash should be doing 50% water changes but since the only one fish I don't really see the need to do more

 

I’ll definitely do that Nylon test with his rock before I put it back in the tank. And if I see any other symptoms of Fin Rot, I’ll absolutely go get some medication.

I change 30% of his water every day, but I think I’m stressing him out with all of the water changes, which could be a big part of the problem. Should I change it to 50% every other day?

I need to go get an ammonia test kit at some point. The test strips I have only test for Nitrates/Nitrites/PH and such.

 

I think that it is your tank and your setup and your fish and you need to decide what's best. If he's the only fish in there then he's not going to have a large ammonia output so he won't have a quick ammonia buildup while your tank is cycling. Do you know your water parameters? Do you know your ammonia, nitrites, nitrates, pH, and temperature?

 

No, I am at school right now, but I will test the water with the strips I own as soon as I get home for everything except ammonia (I still have to go get some test strips for that).

Thanks for the help so far. I’ll let you know what the parameters are once I get home and check on my betta.

 

That isn't major damage. Generally, all you need to do to help his fins regrow is provide him with lots of clean, conditioned, temperature matched water by doing an every other day 50% water change. Leave him in the tank while doing these to avoid the stress of constantly being netted, but be exceedingly careful not to injure him with the siphon.

You also need to figure out what's causing the damage. It does look a bit like fin rot, and clean water should take care of that. With so much damage to his dorsal fin he may also be doing a bit of fin nipping, or getting it caught on tank decor.

 

Ah, alright. 50% water changes every other day sound like a plan, and I always keep him in the tank. I’ll look and see if anything else in the tank may be causing problems (it may also be the filter intake).

Also, would adding Bettafix help or hinder his fins’ healing?

 

It's do mild that I wouldn't bother

 

Alright, thanks. Hopefully the bigger missing chunks or fin wil heal soon, or at least in a month or two.