My friend's Crowntail Betta Male may have finrot :(

My friend called me this morning saying that her male crowntail betta's bottom part of his fin had what appeared to be a small hole in the bottom, but this morning more of it is missing.

I can have a picture for you all later just so you know, but she did a big water change last night upon seeing it.

Her tank is a divided 10 gallon tank with:

side 1- Male Crowntail betta
Side 2- 2x female betta

Water readings:

0 Nitrate
0 Nitrite
150- Hardness
160- Alkalinity
7.6- Ph

 

It's risky at best, having 2 females in such tight space. For finrot, we treat with Triple Sulfa and Rid-Fungus together to attack both causes of finrot.

 

Hi!

Can you please warn your friend about how risky keeping those females being kept together are?

 

I told her, and she told me that they were raised together, and are very calm.

Or are you referring to the space? Should I be warning her about overcrowding?

edit:

Almost forgot to thank you all for the help with finrot!

 

Hello all. I'm the 'friend'.

I got the two females yesterday and was told they lived together for quite some time. They seem to have their roles established. I've been keeping my eye on them in any case, so if there seems to be too much stress on either of them I will most definetely aquire another tank for one of them.

I'm extremely concerned about my male betta, Vladimere. I noticed that part of his tail seemed to be shreded. This morning it seemed to have gotten a little worse. I'll treat him immedietly after I do a big water change. I can only hope it doesn't get any worse. Thanks for the advice. Actually, can I get those medication over the counter?

My other concern is the one female. She seemed fine yesterday morning but later that evening there was some 'breaking' in the scales abover her head. It almost looks like some patches of her back are puffing up. I'll get pictures asap. I'm currently at school but I should be home later tonight.

Ok, here are the pics of the girl.







The weird texture is getting worse. I'm pretty worried. The poor little thing. Is it parasites?

 

I could be wrong, but it looks like fungus to me. I'd start her on a good anti-fungal med asap.

 

Hi!

Looks like Fungus to me to, Dave. Did you cycle the tank? I'm slightly worried about high levels of Ammonia or Nitrite.

 

I posted the pictures on a Betta forum and they told me it was columnaris.

They also posted this really helpful as well. I followed all the instructions so hopefully its not to late to save her.


EDIT: And I made sure the tank was cycled before I added them. I also drip acclimated them so the change wouldn't shock them.

 

Can you please warn your friend about how risky keeping those females being kept together are?

It doesn't really matter if they've lived together. Mine did until the posts made me uneasy and I divided the 10g. Last night I obviously fed the wrong fish first, and the other jumped the divider. Both girls were flaring something fierce, and obviously planning to rumble!

 

Well... she died tonight. She was letting me help her get to the surface to breathe before she died. To think she was so active last night and this morning.


I don't know why, but I cried a lot over her. I just held her for what seemed like forever, hoping she would move again. I'll bury her tomorrow. I have her in a plastic bag in the freezer labeled 'Do Not Eat'.

 

I'm so, so sorry about your little girl. She obviously trusted you totally and had a better life because of your 'parenting'.

 

Hi!

Aw. Poor little thing - but look on the bright side: Now you can concerntrate on healing up your male!

 

I am very sorry about your girl. They really do grow on us so fast.

Good luck with the male's fin rot.

 

:'( We're sorry that you lost her. We know how you feel. We felt the same with a poor neglected male we tried to save from walmart a couple weeks back. He had bad fungus and died while I sat there talking to him.

Well... she died tonight. She was letting me help her get to the surface to breathe before she died. To think she was so active last night and this morning.

I don't know why, but I cried a lot over her. I just held her for what seemed like forever, hoping she would move again. I'll bury her tomorrow. I have her in a plastic bag in the freezer labeled 'Do Not Eat'.

 

The other girl has it now as well. I can't help but think the medicine isn't working at all.

I did a 100% water change (I put her in a whole new tank), dropped the temp to 74, added a bit of salt, added the medicine, put in the bubbles... I followed the directions exactly. But she got really bad over the course of the day. I think I might loose her too.

My male is swimming around in his clean tank without a care in the world (I did a full change with him too, just to be safe). But the fin rot doesn't seem to be getting better. Maybe it's too soon to tell. I started taking pictures of him; a sort of photographic journal so I can tell if things are getting worse.

I feel pretty helpless. I know Ive done all I could... I just wish there was more, something else that'll miraculously save her and cure him.

 

Your temperature is too low for one thing. It should never be below 78 for a betta and more like 80 for a sick betta as most medicines work best at that temperature. For Columnaris, a medication called MaracynII is the best treatment and will work.
It is specifiically for body fungus infections among other things. It is a powder that you add to the tank and it quickly dissolves. I have never had any problem with it working.

Rose

I am so sorry you lost your little girl.

 

Your temperature is too low for one thing. It should never be below 78 for a betta and more like 80 for a sick betta as most medicines work best at that temperature. For Columnaris, a medication called MaracynII is the best treatment and will work.
It is specifiically for body fungus infections among other things. It is a powder that you add to the tank and it quickly dissolves. I have never had any problem with it working.

Rose

I am so sorry you lost your little girl.

I am currently using MaracynII.

I read up on Columnaris, and although I am aware 80 is ideal for bettas, Columnaris breeds quicker at high temperatures. 74 was suggested various times. At that temperature the betta are still comfortable range, the medication can work faster and the fungus won't spread as rapidly.

Maybe she was just too far gone for it to work. And although I treated the water with the medication before the other girl even showed signs of having it, it looks as if she is struggling to breath and might pass at any moment.

Oh, and thanks, all of you, for giving me your sympathy. This is my first time owning fish and its nice to know there are people who can relate to my feelings.

 

I hate to hear about your fish hun ...

I don't see why the medication's were not working though.. you were extremely worried and I know that you were doing the best you could..

I know it sucks, but you need to put your focus fully into Vlad and his finrot..

 

I just caught up on this thread. I'm so sorry to hear you lost her. It's so hard to lose a pet.
I hope your other fish are on the mend soon.

 

Actually.... the other girl died about an hour ago. She was a fighter... she lasted a lot longer than I expected. She let me help her get air as well.

I'm so torn.

I don't think I posted pictures of them for you guys, maybe its a bit morbid to do it after the fact, but here they are:




Sophia and Rika.

At least Vladimere is doing ok. I'll do another 50% water change tomorrow and scrub the other tanks. As soon as he shows signs of healing I'll put him back in the 10 gal.

Thanks again for all the support.

 

Oh, I am terribly sorry for your loss.

 

I'm so sorry you lost those pretty girls

 

We're so sorry that you lost the girls. :'(

 

Thanks a lot guys. For your support and help. I know it would have been a lot harder for me to deal with this without your support and help. <3

EDIT: I decided to bury them by my creek, under this beautiful Dogwood tree we have.

Is it strange that I am burying them? I feel like flushing them is horrible.

 

They were beautiful girls and you fought for them and it is so appreciated. You were valiant in your efforts. Thank you for your kind and loving heart.

I am sure that they appreciated your kindness and love. I do hope that you will consider being a betta parent for more of them. You have shown that you certainly have the compassion and tenderness to make an excellent companion for them.

You made their last days as easy and comfortable as possible and did for them what you could and you should be so proud that you did this for them. Their lives could have ended so much worse without you. Thank you.

You have my deepest sympathies.

Rose

 

do any of you know any reasons as to why the medication isn't working? Her male bettas finrot is not improving either

 

Finrot is a different type of disease and can be caused by a number of things. The treatment is varied and may not respond to the same medications as the Columnaris even though the medication says it will treat finrot. Also the finrot goes through stages. First the finrot has to be HALTED then we worry about the regrowth of fins which can take months or sometimes may never occur. The fins may regrow to a point and never attain the spectacular beauty they had to begin with. The really important thing to concentrate on to begin with is to HALT the disease and it is definitely a cold water problem among others so if this fish is not being kept in warm water (at least 78 degrees) it is not going to improve and will continue to lose fin tissue. The A #1 medication that I have ever seen work on finrot is Triple Sulfa not any of the others. It will have to be given long term. The box says to give no more than 10 days but the company that makes it gave me instructions to give for at the very least 2 weeks for a fish that is having a bad case of finrot and to give double strength in water that is very hard. Hard water can keep medication from working as if you had carbon in the filter. I do not know if the calcium in the water binds with the medication or what but it just does not work as well. So if the water is hard the meds are going to have to be increased and the finrot meds do take longer to work than for many other problems.

So:

Triple Sulfa or TrI Sulfa depending on which brand you buy
for at least 14 days in a tank which is at least 78 degrees F. AND which is very clean and CYCLED. If you put a fish with finrot into an uncycled tank and try to treat him you are not going to have good results as they cannot handle the ammonia, nitrites and nitrates even in the smallest degrees. They also need to be in a hospital tank with the smallest amount of water movement in the tank as possible (current from the filter) so put a baffle up in front of the outflow or put a cycled sponge filter in the tank or something that will make the flow very soft for the fish to protect any new formed fin tissue.
Keep everything clean. Do not overfeed the fish. Do not go near the tank unless everything you are putting in the tank is clean including your hands. This fish is fighting for its life and needs all the help it can get. Do not net this fish for any purpose at all. If a partial water change is needed for any reason during treatment do it carefully without disturbing the fish. Leave him in the tank and pour new water carefully into the tank being careful not to hit the area of the tank where the fish is to cause him any disturbance. (nothing to disturb new fin tissue)

Hopefully this tells you what you need to know.

Rose

 

Thanks Rose. I'll check out Triple Sulfa.

 

thanks for helping Rose.. that post was very informative and I have wrote it down for future reference =)

 

I know the Sulfa meds have worked for me and I believe that Dave used them with success and some of the other members used it. I just would say that finrot has reached epidemic proportions and it is too serious to start with the lighter weight drugs anymore and Crowntails do not normally have a problem with it so it must be bad. So I would not mess about with the treatment and do it the strongest way possible to begin with.

My Halfmoon Nate just recently died after almost a year of fighting it and he came to me with it or I believe we could have gotten it under control. I spent time dealing with it with lesser meds and did not start with the Triple Sulfa as I later discovered with some of my others who recovered and I feel had I gotten to him to begin with with the Sulfa meds, he would also have recovered. It just got too bad before I got the Sulfa going on him.

Do not give up hope though if you do not see improvement in his fins right away. Remember that regrowth can take a long time and is sometimes helped with VitaChem and Fish Protector that Dave uses. He may never be the betta he once was but if we can get the disease halted we are on the way to saving him and then we will worry about regrowth. If it halts, the regrowth will eventually start. The hard part is getting it halted.

Rose

 

I'm sorry about your loss. But thanks for your recommendations. His tail looks like it isn't getting any worse but I'm going to try new medications and continue the treatment for at least two weeks like you said.

I forgot if I mentioned it, but I've been taking pictures of him daily just to keep a log. That way I can see if the damage is getting worse or not.

 

Would you consider posting those pictures or at least the first and last of them so we could see the comparison? It would help to be able to see the progress of the problem if you need help. This is a very good idea and will really help you as it is too hard to use memory to judge whether there is improvement, decline or if there is a standstill in the disintegration of the tissue. With pictures you have positive proof. That is such a fantastic idea and such a help to be able to judge the condition of the fish and fins.

Thank you for sharing it with us.

Rose

 

This was taken two days ago. He's in a smaller tank in this picture because I was doing a mass cleaning and water change with the 10 gal. I wanted to be sure the fungus from the girls didn't cling to anything in the tank (I had the 10 gal diving the girls from him).





Home sweet home in his 10 gal. I took these pics about 10 min ago.

I don't see much change. But in between these two sets I bought the TrI sulfa and gave him some gel-tek. I don't think he's tried eating it yet. =(

 

Okay I do not see further degeneration either, but with a Crowntail it is so hard to see. That is why the picture idea is so great! Thank you for the pictures and sharing the idea. He is so beautiful even with the missing fin tissue.

Do be cautious with mixing meds for him. The Triple Sulfa may not mix well with other antibiotics and I would not want him to have a reaction. (fish can the same as people) So if he refuses the gel-tek please just let it go as he will get the Triple Sulfa from the bath. If you want to get some into him, try soaking his food in a small amount of the dissolved med before you feed him. I would not do it every time you medicate or feed but he will get a bit of extra strength internally. Just take a bit of tank water and soak the food for a couple of minutes before you give it to him or if you feed pellets up to 5 minutes. Just try one piece the first time in case he will not eat it as bettas are picky eaters.

Also I meant to ask what the filter was like for his tank? Is it a part of the hood or a HOB (hang on back) or internal filter? I hope that it has a flow control and you can turn the flow down so that if he starts to show fin regrowth that it will not be so strong that it knocks it loose. Regrowth is very fragile for a while until it settles on. But that is for the future, right now we are working on killing the disease. Just a heads up though in case you need to do some readjusting.

Thank you for keeping us informed and we will continue to be here. The ball is in his court now and we will see how the meds help so please do let us know how things are going. You should probably not look to see a lot of change for at least a week, but you should NOT see any more fins disintegrating. If this happens please let us know.

Rose

 

I have a whisper in tank filter. I took the carbon bit out though, so its just the sponge bit. Unfortunately the 'waterfall' causes a little too much flow. I tried looking for a sponge filter but the pet stores around here don't seem to have any. I need to buy some more trisulfa (I was giving him double amounts as suggested because of the hardness in the water*) so I'll check again. Until then I was trying to cut down on the flow by making , but because the lip of the filter is curved it isn't working as its supposed to. Plus I don't really like the idea of having thin pieces of plastic dangling in the water. It's clear so I'm afraid Vlad will not see it, swim by and scrap himself.

He doesn't seem to like the gel-tek so I'll try what you recommended with the feeding. For some reason he doesn't like pellets as much. He loves the bloodworms though.

Other than that, the rot doesn't seem to be spreading. I'll post another picture if you want. In terms of behavior he seems very happy. He paces his tank back and fourth pausing every now and then to get air or check out the plants.

*I heard somewhere that ph up/down wasn't good to use. How would I fix the hardness? The bottle containing the test strips don't tell me much. Does it correct itself over time?


Oh, and Rose, thank you soooooo much for your help.

 

Vlad is a beautiful fish. It sounds like you are taking wonderful care of him.
I have an Aqua-Tech 5-15 (HOB) in my betta's 5 gallon hex. The flow was pushing Prissy all over the place. What I did was cut the blue sponge from a filter cartridge shove it up into the outtake it's long enough that it dangles in the tank. I held it in place by sticking a piece of a plastic plant up in the outtake. Not very technical but it worked for me, maybe it will for you also.

 

Thanks! I'll give it a try. =)

 

Even if you got some floss of some of the bonded filter material to use to cut down the flow. Here is what it looks like.



I would cut a small rectangle of it and tie it on the lip of the filter outflow with a bit of string of something and it would gently slow the flow and the stuff is a big pad and will last a long time. It can be rinsed and reused until it is ready to fall apart for each piece or tossed and cut a new piece if you feel rich and do not want to bother. Or use a rubber band to attach it to the lip if you can make it stay. It is very soft and will not hurt Vlad and it is made for aquarium use so will not hurt the tank at all. This is what I use all the time in my tanks for filter media.

Please do not mess with the pH of the water as it is very dangerous to do so. Most buffers that are used for this purpose are very unstable and will cause wild swings in the pH and kill your fish. At the very least cause way more problems than they will help. Vlad will become accustomed to the pH and will adapt very nicely on his own and there is nothing else to be done for it. As far as having to deal with the medications differently due to hard water, that is just something that those of us with it have to deal with by using the meds more heavily. It is safer than trying to save med money and killing the fish in the meantime. Also I am so sorry to have to tell you that if you are using the test strips for the purpose of testing they are pretty inaccurate. The liquid testing agents are the most accurate and give the best and more widely able to be trusted results. You are eventually going to need a Test Kit (Master Test Kit for Freshwater Aquariums). The results for hardness and pH are not going to be critical, but when it comes to ammonia, nitrites, and nitrates, I would not trust the test strips with the results. We generally recommend the ones from API (Aquarium Pharmaceuticals, Inc) as they are the more widely used ones and when the results are spoken of they are more readily understood. I believe the kits for the Master Test Kits run about $18.00 some places. It does include tests for Ammonia, Nitrate, Nitrite, High Range pH, Low Range pH, Chlorine, and I think a couple of others but since I am not at home now I do not have them here to look.

I hope that Vlad is going to continue to improve or at least to be the same for a bit before improving and then we can see him for the beautiful boy that he is. I am so glad that he is active and happy. That is always a good sign.

Rose

 

Yeah, I heard the strips weren't that good. I'll invest in a good kit asap.

I went to the store for more trisulfa. Luckily they had one box left. I feel like all the pet stores around here don't carry as much equipment as they should. Hopefully they'll restock soon. I have a feeling I'll be buying more in a few days.

I bought a big filter sponge and added that. It worked miracles. I am still using the plastic thing on top of that and there is hardly any movement in the water.(I didnt get your post, Rose, until after I got home) I'll get some of that filter material when I go out to buy the test kit.

I also tried out mixing geltec and water then letting the food soak in there. He ate it right up! =)

Thanks again!

 

I really think that a big factor in this is the substrate in Betta tanks. We love the fancy big fins, but they're heavy and the Bettas drag them along the bottom.. one piece of gravel with a sharp point and you have a fin tear and a potential battle with fin rot. Our first 2 Bettas had fin rot, but both started out with gravel in their tanks. We've had 7 other Betta since then, including a feathered Betta (huge delicate fins) with a swim bladder defect and not 1 has had fin rot.

We're not fish experts and couldn't be that lucky so I really think the flat glass marbles that we use instead of gravel are a key factor to our Bettas staying clear of fin rot.

I just would say that finrot has reached epidemic proportions and it is too serious to start with the lighter weight drugs anymore and Crowntails do not normally have a problem with it so it must be bad. So I would not mess about with the treatment and do it the strongest way possible to begin with.