My Poor Betta

[Jnyftb]

My little Belushi just finished his last E.M. Erythromycin cycle last night. He's estimated to be about 2 1/2 years old. He's losing his color, lethargic and has a little fin rot. So I medicated him.
He's still sleeping all the time. I woke him up and he was annoyed. Darting around the tank, flaring. I know I scared him but I wanted to try and get him to eat. I got him to eat 2 pellets.
Now I was wondering if I should put a little aquarium salt in there, or an almond leaf... Or both.
He's got some fight left and I want to make him feel better

He has a 5.5 gallon filtered and heated tank. Live and fake plants. I have had him for 2 years in September

 

[Goldfishfreak]

I have had success with aquarium salt and have heard almond leaf does well. No harm in trying both!

Sure hope he feels better. Imo you did the right thing by waking him up and getting him to eat. As long as he's eating he will be more likely to heal.

 

[Aubreew]

In my experience, almond leaves can never hurt and won't mess with other meds. AS works wonders, if you're trying to cure the fin rot I recommend this article Fin Rot 101

 

[Rtessy]

I wouldn't use salt with a betta, they're very sensitive. I recently had luck fighting bad finrot and body rot with a methylene blue bath for thirty minutes, 10 drops in half a gallon. But skip the salt, it's often very risky to bettas. IAL can help though, I do recommend that

 

[Jnyftb]

I just put his carbon filter back in since the medicated cycle ended. Should I let it run for a day or two then take the carbon out for the almond leaf... Or just go ahead and take it out now

 

[Rtessy]

I'd let it run a day or two, but you could go ahead and add the leaf now because it takes a few days for them to start releasing tannins

 

[Bettabuddies]

My betta fish actually has a bit of fin rot as well. I'm treating him with just almond leaves since I caught it super early. I heard that you should only use aquarium salt if he's really sick. Try almond leaves first then if your not seeing improvement use the aquarium salt

 

[Aubreew]

I keep almond leaves in with my betta because they like it, so I couldn't get almond leaves to cure fin rot alone. I've had no luck with melafix for fin rot either. The only thing I have tried that works is aquarium salt. So I think it really varies from fish to fish

 

[emmysjj]

Here's a good med for fin rot :

 

[Fanatic]

I wouldn’t do the AQ salt, it has negative effects.

 

[CanadianFishFan]

let me say earlier in my hobby here i had a doubletail betta who lost the majored of his fins and didnt eat for 2months. I spent over $80 trying to medicate him with salt, erythromycin, melafix (oops didnt know it was safe) and some weird betta fix stuff. None of it worked and i tried everyday. I think it was fin melt and he was stressed, eventaully i had to say goodbye. Anyway past the depressing story i think the best way i should have done was daily %75 water changes first before it got to worse.