Kanaplex and fin rot treatment duration

HI everyone!
We rescued a Betta with fin rot about a week ago. I started treating him with salt and Kanaplex, and he's just finished the 3rd dose. The fin rot progression seems to have been halted -- yay! -- but I can't tell if there's significant enough improvement to entirely stop his treatment. Should I put him through a second round of Kanaplex "just in case" (he did not show any stress through the first round)? If not, I'm thinking to continue the water changes every other day till there's noticeable regrowth. What are your thoughts? Thank you ^-^ (fyI -- his tank is cycled).

 

From personal experience, I think you're headed in the right direction. Kudos to you for saving that betta! I did the same thing and my bettas fins are still growing back after a month. It happens slowly so it will take time but you just got to keep at it. If you don't want to use a strong medication, maybe drop down to bettafix and continue monitoring? (depends on how severe this fin rot is too) best of luck!

 

HI everyone!
We rescued a Betta with fin rot about a week ago. I started treating him with salt and Kanaplex, and he's just finished the 3rd dose. The fin rot progression seems to have been halted -- yay! -- but I can't tell if there's significant enough improvement to entirely stop his treatment. Should I put him through a second round of Kanaplex "just in case" (he did not show any stress through the first round)? If not, I'm thinking to continue the water changes every other day till there's noticeable regrowth. What are your thoughts? Thank you ^-^ (fyI -- his tank is cycled).

If you finished one course as per manufacturer's instructions, and see improvement, I would probably not go on a second course. Kanamycin is a strong antibiotic and I wouldn't take it lightly, even for human use. Most likely by this point your betta has recovered enough to fight the bacteria on his own. Water changes as you mentioned would benefit him greatly towards full recovery. But If you haven't completed it, complete it to its full course or risk resistant bacteria developing..

 

Thank you so much! Yes, he's completed the first course; I won't start him on the second. I've done the next water change with salt, but am thinking not to do any more salt after this? As it's been a week of salt now and I think that's the limit?

Matthew7812 The last betta I rescued about a year ago had horrific fin rot, literally entire chunks falling off -- I analysed him every day during his recovery and concluded that his fins regrew at about 1mm per week ^-^'

 

Thank you so much! Yes, he's completed the first course; I won't start him on the second. I've done the next water change with salt, but am thinking not to do any more salt after this? As it's been a week of salt now and I think that's the limit?

Yes, you may hold off the salt for now. More prolonged salt might stress him out. May your betta have a quick and complete recovery!

 

Thank you vyrille!

 

I am currently fighting bad fin rot in my Betta and I too had done a single round of Kanaplex (as well as daily water changes and a round of Tetra Lifeguard which did nothing) and it temporarily stopped the rot. Then after about a week it came back. IIRC, Kanaplex can be dosed again if needed by they recommend giving a break between the 2 rounds.

Since despite all my efforts - water changes, Tetra Lifeguard, salt baths, Seachem Stressguard and a round of Kanaplex - I decided to really go big. I was able to finally get a handle on it and actually see new fin growth by treating with a combination of Jungle fungus cure (main antibiotic is nitrofurazone) and Kanaplex. It's a somewhat more complicated treatment regimen. I'm not recommending this for you yet but if you need to escalate to big gun treatment, here's what I did:

Step 1:
50% water change
1st Dose Jungle Fungus Cure: Leave in the tank for 4 days (1-4)
1st, 2nd Dose of Kanaplex: Day 1 and Day 3

Step 2:
50% Water Change on Day 5
2nd Dose of Jungle Fungus Cure on Day 5: Leave in tank for 4 days
3rd Dose of Kanaplex on Day 5

Step 4
50% Water Change after 4 Days. I also added a charcoal filter for a few days after this last big water change but that is optional

 

Wow thanks so much girlwithmanyeyes! I hope your Betta gets completely well soon!

When we rescued that Betta over a year ago with the horrific fin rot -- literally down to almost stumps -- we got antibiotics from our vet (he's actually a marine vet). That really worked and I will likely turn to that again if really need be. At the time, because we weren't expecting to bring a Betta home (we were actually bringing our dog in to the vet but left with the Betta in tow haha), we didn't have a cycled tank readily available. So we essentially had to cycle the tank at the same time as treating his fin rot.

What I observed was that his fins were very "sensitive" to even the slightest hint of ammonia in the tank -- i.e. anything above 0. So obviously it was crucial to get the tank cycled as soon as possible. For so long as there was even the slightest hint of ammonia, his fins would do a one-step-forward-two-steps-back kind of thing. But as soon as we got the tank cycled (daily water changes), his fins started really growing back (albeit slowly haha). He eventually made a complete recovery -- fins grew back to almost about 98%.

So I'm not sure if your little fellow might be having some issues with the ammonia in your tank or your tank not being cycled yet (I saw in your profile the ammonia wasn't 0)? Try to get the tank cycled and that could help For us, despite having been in the hobby for some time, we only just recently discovered Kanaplex. So we'll see how well it works! Bestest to you and your fishy ^_^

 

rabbitbiscuit - I agree on the ammonia complication. When I bought him I had a cycled tank (albeit newly cycled) and I made a couple of newbie mistakes. 1) I thought the black tips of his fins were just natural coloring since he has a lot of black on his body but later discovered it was early fin rot then 2) like an idiot I dumped all of the water that he was in the bag with into my tank. The fins started getting worse despite daily water changes so I decided to try the Tetra Lifeguard. Unfortunately for us - this completely wiped out my nitrifying bacteria.

So then I had to try to use Tetra SafeStart which requires that you not change the water during the first 2 weeks. I was using Prime to keep any ammonia bound up and non-toxic but not doing the water changes made him way worse again with huge chunks falling off.

That's when I went with my above treatment. I should also add that during my first 50% water change I was way more aggressive in cleaning he gravel and scrubbing all tank decorations. Now, I'm back to daily or even other day PWCs and dosing with Prime daily to keep ammonia safe. I may try a Tetra SafeStart again. Thankfully my betta has a low bioload and my ammonia level has been a steady 0 (but so are nitrites and nitrates :-( )

At least I'm finally seeing new transparent growth on his fins and no more chunks falling off.