The thing is: For one, if the fish is unlikely to recover, (and that's always a strong possibility) not only is letting him go on for a long time adding to his discomfort or suffering, but these parasites which cause many, many of these problems are highly contagious and keeping a very, very ill fish around often leads to illness and loss of the rest of the fish in the tank. (if you have a community tank) So, sometimes that decision needs to be made. I've flushed my fair share of fish down the toilet before they were dead and I believe they die very quickly thereafter. It's not a pleasant task to be sure, but sometimes necessary for the good of the entire aquarium.
Poor guy...I had a very random and devastating betta illness with my last one, Kabuki. He was fine on Friday, I left for the weekend and left my brother in charge of feeding him his four pellets once a day...came back to a vase (it was the 1+ gal size that had always done well for me) that had turned cloudy, viscus and Kabuki's fins were all frayed. I did a complete water change but he still died. And even though I scrubbed out that thing with boiling water, bleach, more boiling water and dried it in the sun, the next betta I tried in it had the same thing happen. I threw out the vase and haven't gotten a betta since. Still no idea what it was or why it happened.
Hope Bellpepper makes it!
Hope Bellpepper makes it!
coppersafe is a great product. should help with the fin rot and the ick...
id also try upping the temp just a bit (itll help detatch the ick parisites) and adding some aquarium salt (if i remember my dosages right its a tablespoon per 10 gal for ick treatment on most fish)
it could definatly be a swim bladder issue...
like people and other pets fish can just get sick, but there fairly stoic creatures and often by the time they LOOK ill there already very sick...and once their imune system is in trouble ick and fin rot are 2 very common occurances at that point.
i wish i could help you figure out what caused it.
anything new added to the tank plant/deco wise? what about water? new water source?
(i lost 6 fish in the space of a few hours when i ran out of bottled water for water changes and the town decided to put extra treatment in the city water that day...it doesnt take much)
anything perculiar about his water? cloudyness? any knid of slimeyness to his glass/rocks?
has the flow from his filter been incresed? (bettas stress under stronger currents...)
mabe a change in daily light? or even schedual?
ive got my fingers crossed for him.
and boxer...
PLEASE dont go offering half arsed "advice" on things that 1: you are unaware of the situation of
2: sypathy LEARN to use some...
3: unless your "good sized plecos" are dwarf and/or bristlenoses they should NOT be in anything under 55 gallons... the common pleco is a tank buster and generally anymore than 1 per 55 gals is way overstock with those prehistoric looking potential moster fish.
(and no fish dont "only gorw as big as their tank" as many like to think)
im not trying to be mean/bitchy about this BUT this is a huge peeve of mine, plecos need SPACE, even the dwarf/bristlenose plecos shouldnt be in anything less than 25gals!
id also try upping the temp just a bit (itll help detatch the ick parisites) and adding some aquarium salt (if i remember my dosages right its a tablespoon per 10 gal for ick treatment on most fish)
it could definatly be a swim bladder issue...
like people and other pets fish can just get sick, but there fairly stoic creatures and often by the time they LOOK ill there already very sick...and once their imune system is in trouble ick and fin rot are 2 very common occurances at that point.
i wish i could help you figure out what caused it.
anything new added to the tank plant/deco wise? what about water? new water source?
(i lost 6 fish in the space of a few hours when i ran out of bottled water for water changes and the town decided to put extra treatment in the city water that day...it doesnt take much)
anything perculiar about his water? cloudyness? any knid of slimeyness to his glass/rocks?
has the flow from his filter been incresed? (bettas stress under stronger currents...)
mabe a change in daily light? or even schedual?
ive got my fingers crossed for him.
and boxer...
PLEASE dont go offering half arsed "advice" on things that 1: you are unaware of the situation of
2: sypathy LEARN to use some...
3: unless your "good sized plecos" are dwarf and/or bristlenoses they should NOT be in anything under 55 gallons... the common pleco is a tank buster and generally anymore than 1 per 55 gals is way overstock with those prehistoric looking potential moster fish.
(and no fish dont "only gorw as big as their tank" as many like to think)
im not trying to be mean/bitchy about this BUT this is a huge peeve of mine, plecos need SPACE, even the dwarf/bristlenose plecos shouldnt be in anything less than 25gals!
I'm sending good vibes for Bellpepper... I found my betta dead yesterday. His name was Falcon. The poor guy had Fin Rot and Swim Bladder and I tried everything to help him... all it did was prolong his life a little longer, but yesterday he decided he was done. I miss him already... he's the only fish I've ever actually gotten attached to and probably the last one I will have for a while.
Oh man... swim bladder disease sucks! And some bettas seem to get it chronically. Others seem to get it from freeze-dried diets (one of mine did, and I got stuck feeding him a "special" diet his whole life).
Are you on the UltimateBettas forum? They were always so helpful when I had a fishy problem. Good luck!
Are you on the UltimateBettas forum? They were always so helpful when I had a fishy problem. Good luck!