my poor betta fish has fin damage..how do I help him?

Hi!
I'm new to this whole thing..so bare with me! I just got a betta fish about 2 weeks ago and put him into a 1 gal filtered tank with a plastic plant. He seemed to love it swimming in and out all the time, but today I noticed a big chunk of his back fin is all torn and the rest is all raggedy. I took the plant out, is there anything else I should do? :-\ How can I fix his fins?  ???I'm really concerned.... :'(
thanks!

~wendy~

 

HI Wendy! Welcome to FishLore! It's great to have you with us! My suggestion would be to see if you could find a live plant to put in your tank to replace the plastic one. Bettas love plants to swim around in. You could also treat him with Maracyn 1 and 2 to prevent any infection and help his tail growth. The only problem though is the pills are made for 10 gallon tanks. Can you upgrade your tank to a 10 gallon? You could treat him in that tank, and after treatment, set the tank up the way you want it. If that's not possible, you may want to look at getting a product called Betta Fix. I don't know much about it, but it's supposed to be natural ingredients to help with infections and tail rot, so I'm guessing it's used to promote healing. It's also probably easier to medicate a smaller tank like yours with that stuff.

 

HI Wendy-

Welcome to the group - it is really nice to meet a fellow Betta owner. I have used Bettafix and I thought it did the job. It is definitely made for the SMALL tanks as it would be too expensive for any of the bigger tanks, but it is easy to use and didn't cause further problems. I keep it for my quarantine tank for things like fin damage and such where he needs to come out of the big tank for a while.

My biggest problem has been with the plastic plants because he is so CURIOUS and wants to squeeze in between everything, so I am in the process of switching to real plants completely. Hopefully, they will be more gentle. (I have him in a 5 gallon tank now)

Gunnie and some of the others can advise you more about the bigger tanks as I don't have any experience with anything bigger. (They also have have a LOT more experience. My little guys would be in fishie heaven by now if it weren't for them.)

Again, welcome.

Shalom,
Rose

 

Thank you so much for your help! I greatly appreciate it! I'm sure sharkie will too! lol I will get right on the bettafix! Thanks!

 

I've used BettaFix as well...excellent growth rate with it.

 

Yep same here - it must be good