How To Go About A 100% Water Change? Fin Rot Treatment.

I'm going to be treating my betta starting this weekend for 10 days with Aquarium Salt, with 100% water changes daily, following the "Major Fin-Rot" guide on this page: Fin Rot 101

I'm not sure how to go about that 100% water change though. I'll be cupping him instead of netting him to reduce stress, so there will be "leftover" water when I add him back to his QT tank. Is it okay to add that water back to the new, clean water once the water change is complete? I don't want to net him every day, because I really think that will stress him out.

Also, bonus, semi-related question: Does anyone here have experience with VitaChem? I'm going to start using it in his home tank once a week to help with nutrition and health, and was just curious if this stuff was snake oil or if people generally find it helpful.

 

How big is your tank? I wouldnt do 100% its unnecessary, 50% every day is what I would do. Do the water change and add the salt as soon as you can.

 

100% WC's are even more deadly than fin rot do a 50%

 

I am currently treating my betta for fin rot and I can tell you what worked for me. Without a picture, I can't tell you if it's advanced or not but mine lost his dorsal fin overnight so I had to jump to medicine immediately. If he has advanced fin rot (fins falling off daily) then I would recommend treating him with a combination of antibiotics/treatments to help give him the best shot he has.

If it's mild fin rot, daily partial water changes (20-30%) along with stress guard by seachem or stress coat plus will help. If you do that for a week and there is absolutely no change, but he isn't getting worse- keep doing it. If he is getting worse after 3-4 days of daily water changes I'd say you need to medicate him.

I don't know how big your tank is but if its smaller (3-5 gallon) I would say just leave him in there. If it's larger I'd recommend getting him a hospital tank that floats inside your tank so that he can focus on regaining strength and healing and not straining to swim and come up for air.

To treat advanced fin rot this is what I did. I put my boy in a floating hospital tank and slowly turned down the temperature to 77. Do this over an entire day, not all at once, as it will stress him. The colder temp will slow the bacteria. I then purchased Kanaplex, and Jungle Fungus Clear (the fizz tabs). I did the recommended dose for each medicine at the same time. Kanaplex stays in the water for 48 hours, while JFC stays in for 4 days. Kanaplex is treated every 48 hours (up to 3 doses, this is on the label), so after the first JFC treatment (4 days), and 2 Kanaplex treatments (4 days) I did a 25% water change. I then re-dosed JFC and one more round of Kanaplex (you can only dose 3 times safely). After 4 more days I moved my boy out of his floating tank with a cup to not stress him, I DO NOT RECOMMEND NETTING him into a small critter keeper that I heated. I then did 4 25% water changes in a row. So I would take out 25%, add fresh treated water, then continue cleaning the gravel until the entire tank was crystal clear. So essentially you are doing a 100% water change but just in smaller doses to make sure everything gets cleaned (especially your gravel or sand). You also want to take everything out of your aquarium and run it in super hot water or soak it if you can for at least 10 minutes. You can do a bleach dip, but I am sort of leery of it. I then put everything back into the tank.

While dosing his tank with meds, I added a double dose of Seachem stress guard to help fin regrowth, and Vitachem daily. I also strictly fed him frozen bloodworms/brine shrimp soaked in vitachem and garlic guard. This will help their immune system and give them the best chance to fight off the bacteria.

Continue with double dose stress guard and vitachem daily as well as daily or every other day small water changes until fins have significant improvement. Also, check your ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate levels daily to make sure your cycle is holding. A lot of medicines can ruin your cycle.

If you post pics of your fish, and let us know what size tank you have it's easier to give you suggestions but this is what I did for my boy.


That was him after one round of meds, he lost his complete dorsal fin.

This is him today, a week later with huge fin growth already!

 

MsMarvel2716, the QT tank is 2.5 gallons. is an album of when I first got him up until about a few months ago. I got him for free at Petco when I saw him almost dying at the bottom of a cup. He was making some great progress, but has started to revert back to his first picture. I'm ashamed to show a picture of him, but I wanted to show you what he came from before I just posted a picture of him. He's never had big beautiful fins, no matter how hard I try.

He constantly swims and has a great appetite, but he just doesn't have very much finnage anymore. It's gotten bad, and I haven't been sure on what I should be doing, apart from water changes.

So I'll be using the 2.5 gallon tank to QT him and hopefully get him better. The process you typed out was helpful, but I'm still a little confused. I know I should probably be using medicine instead of salt now, for sure. I have API Fungus Cure and Methylene blue, but I don't have the other medicines you recommended. Are they absolutely necessary or can I just try the fungus cure first? That and methylene blue dips helped him the first go round, shown in the album above.

EDIT: After reading your post a few more times I think I understand how to medicate the QT. I'm only iffy about one part: the first time you re-medicate the tank after your first 25% water change. Do you remedicate for the whole tank again, even after only changing 25% of the water? Or do you only re-dose for the 25% you took out? I hope I'm not being too confusing lol.

 

Aww he is a super cool looking fish, and you are so sweet for saving him the way you did! I do the same thing, and most people think I'm crazy but I can't even look at the betta fish at my LFS without taking one home because there is always one that is close to death.

Ok so as far as treatment, as long as he can get to the surface and breathe, and he is eating you have a good chance. The smaller tank will be helpful. Is the QT tank cycled? If not you are going to want to test the water daily to make sure the levels are in check and you aren't stressing him even more during treatment. Since during treatment a lot of meds will not allow you to do daily water changes id recommend using prime if the ammonia spikes. It will still show as super high (false positive), but its safe on your fish. The goal is to get rid of any stress the fish may have, and build up his immune system. I highly recommend frozen food during treatment. Blood worms or brine shrimp. Don't overfeed, but feed 2 times per day maybe 2-3 worms/shrimp per feeding. The more protein he has the more strength he will have. If he is prone to constipation, don't overfeed. You know your fish but if hes eating it will help him fight it.

You can definitely try what you have on hand. I would treat the QT tank with fungus cure per its directions, and as you already have done I would not use methylene blue to treat, but dips should be ok. I did not do dips with my boy because I figured it would do more harm stressing him. You can do the max amount of treatments of fungus cure but if you're not noticing any change I would highly recommend Kanaplex and JFC as your last resort knock out combo. Kanaplex is known as the last resort sort of treatment. It's super strong. You can get it on amazon or pretty much anywhere online. It's not expensive. The JFC are fizz tabs I found them at walmart for 4$. Definitely try what you have on hand first, but I would have it just as a backup. The thing is that there are strains of fungus/bacteria. Fin rot is a symptom not the diagnosis. So it's hard to tell what he has. Treating with a combo treatment that treats a wide variety of gram negative/positive and fungal infections is like a sure fire combo to knock it out. The fungus clear could work, so try that first. I haven't used it so just follow along with the directions and be sure to not overdose.

I do recommend you get some stress coat plus by API or StressGuard by Seachem. That has really helped my betta. I double the dose it says on the label. It's not expensive either, and you can use it with every water change after the fish is healed.

I know this is a lot of info, but I hope it helps you. Definitely, let me know if you have any further questions. I hope he heals super quickly!

 

Thank you so much! You've been super helpful. I'll try the API Fungus Cure first and see where that gets me. Also, I'll be picking up some stressguard immediately. Thanks again! I'll post progress!

 

Yeah, definitely let me know how he's doing. And try not to stress. If you're like me you're probably super anxious. As long as you are doing everything you can, it's the best that can be done, and no matter the outcome you've given him an amazing chance at life. So take a deep breath, and I hope it works out! Again, if he is eating and breathing normally, you are already halfway there. If he stops eating, that's when you should worry. Hang in there!

 

And try not to stress. If you're like me you're probably super anxious.

That was so true it's scary, haha! I'm a natural worrier, so this of course has me freaking out. You made me feel better though. Deep breaths.

 

By the way, I didn't say it the first time around, but your boy is so handsome! You did an excellent job on healing him!

 

Thank you! He's got a loooooooonnnngggg way to go lol But he was a petco rescue and he came with fin rot, so it's always going to be an uphill battle. Out of all my fish, he is the strongest and has the best personality. He is my baby. I am just relieved he's healing. Whoever thought fish keeping would be super easy going and relaxing never owned a fish lol

 

Tell me about it! My first betta was an impulse buy (he’s the one in my profile pic). I took him home in a 1 gallon cube and thought I was doing him a favor until I researched a bit that night. That’s how I found this forum, lol. They’re way more work than you realize! It makes me sad about all the animal loving people out there who think they’re “rescuing” a fish and keep them in containers not much better than the cup they come in. They really have no idea.

 

You are telling me! Everyone starts somewhere. It's the people who research, and educate themselves and then actually practice what they've learned that make all the difference. How is your boy today?

 

100% water changes can be harmless IMO, I did some when my first Betta had bad fin rot and I did a 90 something change on my 2.5 gallon tank a couple months ago for my new Betta because she'd have to go a couple weeks with no WC and she was okay. However I agree they shouldn't be done too often. I hope your fish gets better!

 

You are telling me! Everyone starts somewhere. It's the people who research, and educate themselves and then actually practice what they've learned that make all the difference. How is your boy today?

I'm sorry, I just saw that you replied! He's still doing okay, I haven't added him to the QT tank just yet, but he'll be going in tomorrow and starting his first round of meds. I added stress guard and vitachem to his tank already though, just as a holdover until tomorrow. I'll be sure to post updates as soon as he's doing better!

 

Just an update in case anyone is still following this! Haha. The black edges around his fins have disappeared after a round of API Fungus Cure and then a few days later a full course of Jungle Fungus Clear, daily drops of Stress Guard and weekly doses of VitaChem. I’ve also been adding tons of IAL with every water change, so about every 2-3 days (or whatever the medicine he’s on specifies). It’s a long road ahead but seeing progress is hopeful! Thanks for the help everyone!

 

So glad to hear it!! Keep at it!!