30 Gallon Tank Something in my betttas gills?

Can anyone tell me what's wrong with my betta? It looks like there's something caught in his gills. Or like a spider is crawling out of it. He's been very lethargic lately and mostly hangs out at the surface. I just started treatment for gill flukes despite not being sure that that's what's wrong. I got pretty good video of it here:
Mod edit: Broken link removed
Is it a foreign object? Should I try to remove it?

 

I’m not sure what it is, hopefully someone more experienced can come by and help you.

But could you help to fill up the emergency template? It might help others who can help you to help you find out the problem.

 

You know what's rude and uncalled for? Being eaten alive by parasites. Having just learned true Lernaea is actually fairly rare and usually localized (I'm in Texas) I was going to add some additional information ppl might like to know. But since it will probably just get deleted anyway I guess anyone else dealing with this demonic alien will just have to go it just as alone as I was.

But otherwise, the larva stage of these things are basically fish lice and they're near impossible to see. They can and will and DO jump out of the water and infest your home. I had to shrink wrap my main aquarium. Treat like typical lice/flea infestations, covering the floor with powered bleach Clorox works well. In this stage they will also invade and infest porous airstones or anything else similar, especially driftwood, making stopping the infestation near impossible. Infestations happen fast. Very fast. It takes only a couple days for the eggs to start hatching. Far quicker than any commercially available remedy says it will work, Cupramine takes a full 2 weeks. Once the eggs start hatching, whoever is in your hospital tank will be infested multiple times and quickly die. You can prevent this, somewhat, by keeping temperatures low. Under 72 Fahrenheit or so will slow or stop their lifecycle from completing . However, this will also cause any treatment you deploy to not work as effectively. The reason these things are basically impervious to any chemical is because they burrow into the fish, under the scales, and retreat there when you introduce irritants. Lowering the temperature will stop them from releasing eggs, but also they'll spend more time inside the fish. They also adapt, fast. To anything you throw at them. So don't use half measures like I did. I had some success with a salt bath. It seemed to work, but then they adapted like some kind of extraterrestrial entity and 2 tablespoons of aquarium salt into a 2 gallon tank didn't phase them at that point. If you use General Cure, remember that it's an antibiotic, something that I didn't know at the time. Don't create a superbug strain of Lernaea. They're a seasonal pest, and explode in numbers in springtime, although they are fairly rare. They're somewhat localized to Texas, New Mexico, Arkansas, Louisiana. But they've been found all over the world. They especially love carp, betta, koi, goldfish, or anything similar. You can avoid getting them by making sure to thoroughly clean anything new you're introducing into the tank.

On another note, I can't exactly prove this and it's sorta impossible for me to really tell definitively, but I do have a main tank that was entirely unaffected despite being ground zero for one of the fastest and most invasive infestations I've ever seen, as evidence. I'm fairly certain my neon tetra are eating them. I believe I've seen them picking them off one another. I've seen them fighting, which they do all the time, but this is different. They're not both going fast, one will slow down and the other will peck at it fast and then they both swim away, if that makes sense. This is kinda confusing because I've seen pictures of anchor worms on neon tetra, so I'm not sure how that happens. They seem to be going after things in the water that I can't see (much more than usual, anyway) I've also seen them, I think, pecking them off my cory, which they NEVER do. They get close to the cory during mealtime because cory can be messy eaters and they kick food up for them, but I've never once seen neon tetra actually peck at an armored catfish before, these past couple days I've seen it on multiple occasions. Betta wouldn't have let the tetra get close and maybe that 's why he was the only one infested. Just a theory though.

 

Hi,

Do you have pictures that you can post? I would love to see what these things look like....

Are they common anchor worms? Or something that has evolved?

Another research project...as I am your next door neighbor...LA!!

 

No pictures but I do have video

it's hard to tell if they are something new. There used to be what was considered hundreds of different species of cyclopoid crustacean copepod Lernaea. But recently it was found that they are all in fact the same species with many subspecies. It has been reported in the aquarium hobby, in the United States, as far back as 1918 at least but it's known as a non-native invasive species. For whatever reason, they're actually poorly understood and not well documented. In fact one of the first things the discoverers note about them is the difficulty in identifying them. Also, for whatever reason, they don't do as well in the wild as they do in captivity. In the aquarium hobby they can be catastrophic, but infestation rates in the wild are no where near the level of explosive population growth as they can manage in captivity.

A couple other things I forgot to mention. Pulling them out by hand is difficult. Their heads are barbed backwards. You must grip them by the head when pulling them out or head will break off inside and grow back brand new. You'll know you've gotten the head and successfully pulled it out when you hear a characteristic sickening "pop" sound. Also, in the larva stage they will inhabit fish gills and feed on them, you won't be able to see this unless you actually take the fish out and look. Cupramine was the only thing they really responded well to, if you're going to use Cupramine Copper, make sure to include in the tank crushed up seashell or something like that for it to bind to, otherwise it will just stay in the water and be ineffective. Paraguard showed no effect at all. Salt baths had some success but it's hit or miss, I've read that they're actually quite resistant to high salinity but then again so are Betta. They will quickly adapt to General Cure if it's not use effectively. Tetra Lifeguard may have worked at first but regardless they adapted to that as well. No reaction to Prazipro. Slight reaction to API Melafix. No reaction to NoPlanaria from Hikari. Good reaction to Seachem Metroplex, this may have worked if I knew what I was doing and if I could get betta to take it orally. MicrobeLift Lice and Anchor Worm was effective at stopping the larva stage but had no effect on adults. I couldn't find any potassium permanganate, Lowes and Home Depot don't carry it on hand it has to be special ordered as it's a dangerous oxidizer. I found some on Amazon for about $10 and had ordered but I cancelled it when my fish died. At that point, the rules changed: Kleen-Out Sulfuric Acid Drain Cleaner proved effective at eradicating the Lernaea and the hospital tank they were in.

RIP Seiko, swim on to the Great Beyond, buddy.

 

So sorry for your loss!!!! Seiko was a beautiful boy!!!

Thanks for the info....good to know.

 

Thank you. Last thing I can't forget to mention. They are easily stopped by UV sterilization. But it will only work if they can stay in the water table and their main goal in every stage is to land on a fish.