Righttoabsurdity
- #1
Heya, I am hoping someone who knows better than me has answers for this mysterious months long chronic illness my giant betta has been dealing with. I'll try to keep this as concise as possible, but no promises 
TL;DR: Betta has had patchiness and lethargy for 6 months w/ no discernible cause. Started dosing VitaChem, illness magically goes away?
Cass is my first betta in a long time, and my first giant betta. I have experience keeping fish, but am by no means an experienced fishkeeper. He is almost exactly a year and three months old (we got him from our LFS at three months).
Six months into having him, he started getting this strange white/gray patchiness all over him. He had no itchiness/flashing, wasn't rubbing on anything, and it didn't seem to really bother him. It started on his top, right in front of his dorsal fin. Dr. Google said possibly columnaris, so I treated with Kanaplex. It got a bit better and seemed like he was on the right path. A month later it came back, less concentrated in one spot and more widespread this time. It looks like a slime coat issue more so than ich or a fungus. I haven't seen anything like it online, the closest was a rare and quickly fatal bacterial disease, which he doesn't have.
The second time, I treated with Polyguard. This seemed to help, so I finished the course and thought we were done with it. It wasn't completely gone when I stopped treatment (he was on it for almost 3 weeks) but it stopped looking "active" and more so looked like excess slime coat over healing old wounds, if that makes sense. It stayed that way for a while, and then came back again. This time, he was pretty lethargic and getting a bit skinny. Nothing alarming, but we know him and he wasn't acting right.
I sat and thought about him and his tank for a long time, thinking of any and all possible external stressors that could be causing problems. I did a ton of research, bought aquatic vet books, watched so many YouTube Videos, talked to so many LFS employees, etc. The only real things I could identify was a piece of wood he had uprooted and possibly scraped himself on, and too much flow from the filter. I removed the wood and changed filters, which he seemed to enjoy, but nothing changed with the patchiness. I got new food, gave him a more varied diet, etc. It wasn't getting better but it also wasn't getting worse, so I decided to take a step back and stop tossing meds at him. I was intermittently dosing him with Stress Guard, which wasn't super helpful but would combat "flare ups" and he seemed to be more energetic.
Then he started getting this horrible, horrible gill infection on and off. The first time was the worst, I'll attach pictures but be advised they are not a good time to look at. Huge chunk of (what appears to be) saprolegnia showed up overnight and just got worse and worse. His entire right gill and beard area was full of it, when he flushed them you could see behind the gill cover was so full it was actually pulling down on his beard. It would die off and just leave this chunky nasty stuff behind, filling in that whole space until it fell out. We treated with Maracyn and Ich-X (for the formalin and malachite green, not because I thought he had ich) and that got rid of it. It kept coming back pretty much every two weeks, for a total of three times. After the first time, I treated with only Ich-X until it was gone and it did the trick. It's been about a month since his last gill problem now.
He started to lose more weight, and I started wondering if it had been parasites all along. I couldn't think of anything else that would cause this long term problem. I treated with PraziPro in the water and Metroplex in the food. His skin seemed to get a bit better but it again didn't go away. This combo showed the biggest medication induced improvement to date, though.
I was at the end of my rope and took him to the vet to get some scrapes. The vet agreed something was going on but the scrapes didn't show anything at all. He agreed he was a bit skinny but nothing too alarming. He advised us to try salt in his main tank basically until it goes away, up to six months. I have been confused with how much salt to use (if anyone has an answer for this I would appreciate it, he's in a 10 gallon and I have the Fitz A+ aquarium salt, which seems to be much smaller than other salts out there) so I haven't done that yet. He also brought up diet, and that the vitamins added to most foods are super unstable, meaning you need to switch the food out every 3 months. He also mentioned bettas can have autoimmune things, but usually present with different issues so he wasn't sure. I had just gotten new food a few weeks back, so I didn't think old food was the issue.
Here's the kicker: I bought a bottle of VitaChem on a whim, and have been feeding with that for a little over a week. He looks better than he has in months. The stuff on his body is almost completely gone (not totally, but 85%), he hasn't had a gill problem in over a month, he is so SO much more energetic and engaged, his eyes are clearer, his colors are coming back, he's not hiding and exhausted like he was. It's been a complete turn around, I can't even explain the almost overnight difference without sounding like a fish vitamin ad. This is another reason I haven't added salt. I also have another tank w/ a regular sized betta, and have had no transfer of illness, despite not always being careful about it. I also used media from the OG tank to seed the new betta's tank, with no issue at all.
Has anyone else experienced this? What the heck is it, and does anyone have advice? The vet was confused, I'm confused. I'm guardedly happy he's doing better, but don't trust it won't get bad again. I feel terrible he's been dealing with this so long and on a rollercoaster of meds, and am so desperate to get to the bottom of it. I'm starting to wonder if inadequate nutrition is behind a lot of betta issues I see online, and feel terrible it could have been that the whole time. I was feeding Fluval Bug Bites (with various freeze dried and frozen foods throughout the week) but they were definitely stale by the time I switched.
Info:
-10 gal planted
-80* heated and filtered
-Ammonia & Nitrite: 0
-Nitrate: 5-10
-20-30% water changes 1x weekly
-kH, gH, and pH stable and happy
-No chlorine in tank water, test all parameters at least weekly. Always use Prime conditioned 50/50 RO and tap.
-Hitchhiker Ramshorn (and probably a few Bladder) snails
Diet:
-X-Treme betta pellets soaked in VitaChem 1x daily, 10-15 pellets (he's huge, almost 4.5", I know that sounds like a ton but I promise it isn't)
-Frozen bloodworms, Freshwater Frenzy, and mysis shrimp on rotation throughout the week, also soaked in VitaChem
When we first got him:
When it first started:
Worst it ever was:
Gill issue (in hospital tank, difficult to see but the fuzz had very noticeable "legs", exactly like saprolegnia):
Him today:
When you just wanna eat and your mother won't stop taking pictures of you being mad you're not eating yet:
TL;DR: Betta has had patchiness and lethargy for 6 months w/ no discernible cause. Started dosing VitaChem, illness magically goes away?
Cass is my first betta in a long time, and my first giant betta. I have experience keeping fish, but am by no means an experienced fishkeeper. He is almost exactly a year and three months old (we got him from our LFS at three months).
Six months into having him, he started getting this strange white/gray patchiness all over him. He had no itchiness/flashing, wasn't rubbing on anything, and it didn't seem to really bother him. It started on his top, right in front of his dorsal fin. Dr. Google said possibly columnaris, so I treated with Kanaplex. It got a bit better and seemed like he was on the right path. A month later it came back, less concentrated in one spot and more widespread this time. It looks like a slime coat issue more so than ich or a fungus. I haven't seen anything like it online, the closest was a rare and quickly fatal bacterial disease, which he doesn't have.
The second time, I treated with Polyguard. This seemed to help, so I finished the course and thought we were done with it. It wasn't completely gone when I stopped treatment (he was on it for almost 3 weeks) but it stopped looking "active" and more so looked like excess slime coat over healing old wounds, if that makes sense. It stayed that way for a while, and then came back again. This time, he was pretty lethargic and getting a bit skinny. Nothing alarming, but we know him and he wasn't acting right.
I sat and thought about him and his tank for a long time, thinking of any and all possible external stressors that could be causing problems. I did a ton of research, bought aquatic vet books, watched so many YouTube Videos, talked to so many LFS employees, etc. The only real things I could identify was a piece of wood he had uprooted and possibly scraped himself on, and too much flow from the filter. I removed the wood and changed filters, which he seemed to enjoy, but nothing changed with the patchiness. I got new food, gave him a more varied diet, etc. It wasn't getting better but it also wasn't getting worse, so I decided to take a step back and stop tossing meds at him. I was intermittently dosing him with Stress Guard, which wasn't super helpful but would combat "flare ups" and he seemed to be more energetic.
Then he started getting this horrible, horrible gill infection on and off. The first time was the worst, I'll attach pictures but be advised they are not a good time to look at. Huge chunk of (what appears to be) saprolegnia showed up overnight and just got worse and worse. His entire right gill and beard area was full of it, when he flushed them you could see behind the gill cover was so full it was actually pulling down on his beard. It would die off and just leave this chunky nasty stuff behind, filling in that whole space until it fell out. We treated with Maracyn and Ich-X (for the formalin and malachite green, not because I thought he had ich) and that got rid of it. It kept coming back pretty much every two weeks, for a total of three times. After the first time, I treated with only Ich-X until it was gone and it did the trick. It's been about a month since his last gill problem now.
He started to lose more weight, and I started wondering if it had been parasites all along. I couldn't think of anything else that would cause this long term problem. I treated with PraziPro in the water and Metroplex in the food. His skin seemed to get a bit better but it again didn't go away. This combo showed the biggest medication induced improvement to date, though.
I was at the end of my rope and took him to the vet to get some scrapes. The vet agreed something was going on but the scrapes didn't show anything at all. He agreed he was a bit skinny but nothing too alarming. He advised us to try salt in his main tank basically until it goes away, up to six months. I have been confused with how much salt to use (if anyone has an answer for this I would appreciate it, he's in a 10 gallon and I have the Fitz A+ aquarium salt, which seems to be much smaller than other salts out there) so I haven't done that yet. He also brought up diet, and that the vitamins added to most foods are super unstable, meaning you need to switch the food out every 3 months. He also mentioned bettas can have autoimmune things, but usually present with different issues so he wasn't sure. I had just gotten new food a few weeks back, so I didn't think old food was the issue.
Here's the kicker: I bought a bottle of VitaChem on a whim, and have been feeding with that for a little over a week. He looks better than he has in months. The stuff on his body is almost completely gone (not totally, but 85%), he hasn't had a gill problem in over a month, he is so SO much more energetic and engaged, his eyes are clearer, his colors are coming back, he's not hiding and exhausted like he was. It's been a complete turn around, I can't even explain the almost overnight difference without sounding like a fish vitamin ad. This is another reason I haven't added salt. I also have another tank w/ a regular sized betta, and have had no transfer of illness, despite not always being careful about it. I also used media from the OG tank to seed the new betta's tank, with no issue at all.
Has anyone else experienced this? What the heck is it, and does anyone have advice? The vet was confused, I'm confused. I'm guardedly happy he's doing better, but don't trust it won't get bad again. I feel terrible he's been dealing with this so long and on a rollercoaster of meds, and am so desperate to get to the bottom of it. I'm starting to wonder if inadequate nutrition is behind a lot of betta issues I see online, and feel terrible it could have been that the whole time. I was feeding Fluval Bug Bites (with various freeze dried and frozen foods throughout the week) but they were definitely stale by the time I switched.
Info:
-10 gal planted
-80* heated and filtered
-Ammonia & Nitrite: 0
-Nitrate: 5-10
-20-30% water changes 1x weekly
-kH, gH, and pH stable and happy
-No chlorine in tank water, test all parameters at least weekly. Always use Prime conditioned 50/50 RO and tap.
-Hitchhiker Ramshorn (and probably a few Bladder) snails
Diet:
-X-Treme betta pellets soaked in VitaChem 1x daily, 10-15 pellets (he's huge, almost 4.5", I know that sounds like a ton but I promise it isn't)
-Frozen bloodworms, Freshwater Frenzy, and mysis shrimp on rotation throughout the week, also soaked in VitaChem
When we first got him:
When it first started:
Worst it ever was:
Gill issue (in hospital tank, difficult to see but the fuzz had very noticeable "legs", exactly like saprolegnia):
Him today:
When you just wanna eat and your mother won't stop taking pictures of you being mad you're not eating yet: