# Betta with clumped fins... help please.



## bobina (Dec 10, 2011)

Housing 
What size is your tank? *10 gallons*
What temperature is your tank? *78 degrees constantly*
Does your tank have a filter? *yes*
Does your tank have an air stone or other type of aeration? *no*
Is your tank heated? *yes*
What tank mates does your betta fish live with? *none*

Food
What type of food do you feed your betta fish? d*ried blood worms and bettamin tropical flakes.*
How often do you feed your betta fish?* twice daily - once at 11:30 am then at 6 pm
*
Maintenance 
How often do you perform a water change? *Lately it depends on the instructions of the medication we're using at the time. Right now every 3 days, but before once weekly.*
What percentage of the water do you change when you perform a water change? *Now with the medication 25%, before it was 50%*
What type of additives do you add to the water when you perform a water change? *BettaSafe water conditioner.*

Water Parameters:
Have you tested your water? If so, what are the following parameters?

Ammonia: *This is the only thing currently that we test for and it is in the "safe" range.*
Nitrite:
Nitrate:
pH:
Hardness:
Alkalinity: 

Symptoms and Treatment
How has your betta fish's appearance changed? *His once flowing fins are now clumped into what looks like dreadlocks, his color has diminished into a grey color on his face, he has what appears to be a light fuzzy fungus coating on his body, and now red stripes on his face. (I've included pictures)*
How has your betta fish's behavior changed? *He use to spend most of his time "flighting" his reflection in the glass and being an overall happy, young, outgoing fish. He now hides in his cave for long periods, doesn't flight himself at all and lies in the bottom corner.*
When did you start noticing the symptoms? *About a month ago, maybe 3 weeks after we got him.*
Have you started treating your fish? If so, how? *Yes, first we thought it was ammonia poisoning so we just did more frequent water changes because his face had red lines on it, then we noticed his fins started looking different. They started to clump and fray so we treated him Melafix per the pet stores advice. We read that this was actually harmful to bettas so we immediately stopped that. He then started exhibiting a fungus appearance so we tried Jungle Fungus Clear tablets. He didn't appear to be getting any better so we tried Jungle All in One Treatment tabs, when I stumbled upon the disease Columnaris and the symptoms seem to fit. So now we have been treating him with T.C. Tetracycline for the past 2 days and this stuff really turns the water a funky color.*
Does your fish have any history of being ill? *No*
How old is your fish (approximately)? *No clue unfortunately*

So the story is, my boyfriend and I (who have never owned fish) were in the dreaded Wal-Mart (I hate this store with a burning passion, but our dog insists on only eating a certain dog food from there) and as we're walking down the aisle I see to my horror a whole shel with beta fish in tiny little cups! In fact we noticed that one beta was taken out of his cup and put into a cup with another betta and one was literally biting the other ones fins off. So we scooped the little guy out with a net we found and put him back into his own cup. Unfortunately it was too late and he slowly was dying. Enraged I found a worker and told her how inhumane this was and that it should not be so easy for idiotic people to be able to lift a lid and but one fish inside with another one. So to make a long story short, I felt terrible and knew I had to rescue one of these little guys.

We picked a beautiful blue male with long flowing fins and named him Blue. He was an awesome little playful guy and I felt great to be able to give him a fabulous home! After reading up on necessary care we bought him a 10 gallon tank with a heater and filter, along with some hiding spots and fake plants. He was loving it! After about 3-4 weeks with weekly water changes, he started not being himself. Lethargic, dull colors, and then his fins started clamping up. I've read almost everything I could read to help him and that's why we've been through so many medications, I just want to help the guy and feel terrible that I obviously can't keep him healthy in such a nice big tank and that he seemed healthier and happier in a small cup. I just don't know what else to do! I will do anything to help him because when I have a pet I have to make sure they're happy and healthy no matter what the cost!

I have one before photo and some after photos to give you a visual. I have not yet come across anyone else that has described their fish's fins being dreadlock-like so hopefully someone can help.

The first photo is when we first got him (don't mind the bowl, we went out and got him his big tank later that night) and the rest are of him not feeling so well. The crazy blue water color is from the fungus clear and the ones with a brownish hue is from the tetracycline.


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## EvilVOG (Nov 23, 2011)

it's usually not a good idea to mix medications. sometimes they have a common ingredient like salt, and you end up double dosing.

I'm sure someone will be along shortly with better answers for you. Hope he feels better.


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## EvilVOG (Nov 23, 2011)

Strange night... not alot of people talking today. 

One of my PK girls did something like this, and i moved her to a quarantine tank with Ep. salt (the salt was because she was also sitting on the bottom alot). I also put the QT tank next to my male CT's tank and she perked right up. I think it was either the smaller one gallon tank or the company of my male CT that did it. Sometimes they have trouble going from living in a tiny cup to a giant 10 gallon tank.


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## Littlebittyfish (Jan 5, 2011)

If he is having troubles swimming up to the top to get air I would float him in the container he came in or something similar..or lower the water level.To me from the 6th photo it looks like he may have saddleback columnaris.Does he have a white fluff on his back? Or is that just the lighting?
If so..
The treatment for columnaris from the sticky:
*



Columnaris

Click to expand...

*


> *•Symptoms: White spots on mouth, edges of scales and fins, Cottony Growth that eats away at the mouth, Fins rapidly disingrate, starting at the edges*
> *Gray areas around head and gills, As the disease progresses the gray lesions may change in color to yellow/brown/red, Lesions often occur in front of the dorsal causing a “saddleback” appearance, Lethargic, Loss of appetite, Clamped, Gasping for air*
> *•Treatment: There are 2 versions of Columnaris: chronic and acute. Chronic Columnaris can take days to progress while acute can kill within a day. It is contagious so isolate sick fish. If more than one fish shows symptoms then treat the entire tank. Perform daily 100% water change in small tanks or ¾ water change in larger tanks. Make sure to clean the gravel. Treat with Aq.Salt: add 1 tsp/gal Aquarium Salt 3 times, 12 hours apart so that you end up with 3 times the normal concentration. Do NOT raise the temperature as it thrives in temps over 85*F, however, lowering the temperature does not seem to help fight it. Combine salt treatment with Mardel’s Coppersafe, Maracyn I & II, API Erythromycin, OR API Triple Sulfa, combined with Jungle’s Fungus Eliminator (if possible).*


http://www.bettafish.com/showthread.php?t=73333


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## Myates (Aug 2, 2011)

Here is the link to the other post in emergencies section for this thread:



Myates said:


> Aww poor guy..
> 
> Well, the substance on his body- the light fuzzy fungus, it's hard to see in the pictures, but can you tell me if it looks like a milky grey that just seems to cover/float over his body?
> 
> ...





bobina said:


> Thank you so much for replying!
> 
> The fuzzy stuff looks kind of grey-ish and yes it does seem to hover over his body.
> 
> ...


A lot of times they will clamp their fins together when they are in distress- whether it is stress or illness.


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## bobina (Dec 10, 2011)

Littlebittyfish said:


> If he is having troubles swimming up to the top to get air I would float him in the container he came in or something similar..or lower the water level.To me from the 6th photo it looks like he may have saddleback columnaris.Does he have a white fluff on his back? Or is that just the lighting?
> If so..
> The treatment for columnaris from the sticky:
> *
> http://www.bettafish.com/showthread.php?t=73333*


*

Yes he does have some whitefish fluff on his back, that's why I'm thinking columnar is. He doesn't seem to have trouble swimming other than the fact that his fins are clumped and I'm sure that makes it a little harder to swim.*


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## Myates (Aug 2, 2011)

The only thing that makes me hesitate that it's Columnaris is that he has been having this trouble for the past month- columnaris tends to kill within a week or so of first symptoms. (I'm not going to claim 100% of them do- but normally the one strain takes days, and another can take only mere hours before they pass).

I think Littlebittyfish is on the right track for treatment if that area is covered in the white .. I would recommend going ahead and use Mardel's Maracyn I & II (used in Columnaris treatments) for him. To me, I see the pictures it looks like it is just his coloration that was gone, I didn't see any of the cottony-milky substance on him. But if you are saying he has the cottony-fungus looking substance on him, then I would go ahead and do treatment with the Maracyn- skip the AQ salt as he's probably past the point it will help since it's been going on for a bit.

Make sure you keep his tank dim/dark during treatment, as the medication is light sensitive. 

Here is a picture of columnaris- I still don't think he has that, but I do believe he will benefit from antibiotics, and both one and two of maracyn will cover both gram pos and gram neg of illnesses.


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## bobina (Dec 10, 2011)

Thank you to everyone who replied Here's an update:

So after the tetracycline treatments I noticed that our little betta started hiding so much that he wouldn't even come out for food! He didn't eat for 2 days.

We then put him in a little hospital tank with fresh water, and hiding rock, and heater.

I have updated pics, unfortunately as of now he is not looking so good (he's only been in the little tank for 30 mins) it seems like the meds were doing more harm than good Please tell me what you guys think.

His scales are like falling off now, I'm not seeing the white fuzzy stuff as much, but his fins are still clumped together.


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## Myates (Aug 2, 2011)

Poor little guy.. He looks so much like my Xander.

I see no fuzzy on him.. his missing scales look horrible, but if we can get him through this, those should grow back in a short time.
How long was he in the tetracycline treatment? I believe it says to use for 4 total dosages- 1 dose, 24 hrs later add in another dose.. 24 hours later do a water change add in a dose, and 24 hrs after that add in the last dose (one water change between them 2 (wc) 2. Then a final water change to get him out of the medication.
If you had done it that way, then I would give him some clean water with just conditioner and allow him to rest for 3-5 days and see how he fairs then. You can do a small water change during that time once or twice to help him feel better. If he still looks the same, you can probably get away with doing another round of it.. or use AQ salt instead as it's a little gentler.. if not then you may want to try Maracyn 1 & 2 together. But first lets give him some time to clear out his system and rest (if you have completed the 4 doses of the original medication)- why only partial water changes for now (don't forget the water conditioner). If you have Stress Coat, you can use that as the water conditioner. After a few days of resting we can go from there and see what may best work for him.
If you only have done one round of the medication, go ahead and finish it and do the secondary round then allow him some resting period with just clean water. 

The Tetra medication is for fungus and bacteria.. which is what I believe he has, a bacteria infection going on. I'm sorry you are going through this, and I wish there was more we could do.. but you are doing a lot for him and doing your best. Keep your chin up, and keep us updated.


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## bobina (Dec 10, 2011)

Myates said:


> Poor little guy.. He looks so much like my Xander.
> 
> I see no fuzzy on him.. his missing scales look horrible, but if we can get him through this, those should grow back in a short time.
> How long was he in the tetracycline treatment? I believe it says to use for 4 total dosages- 1 dose, 24 hrs later add in another dose.. 24 hours later do a water change add in a dose, and 24 hrs after that add in the last dose (one water change between them 2 (wc) 2. Then a final water change to get him out of the medication.
> ...



Yes, I did complete the whole tetracycline cycle so a few days at your discretion I will keep him in the clean fresh bowl for a couple days. He seems a little more livelier in this bowl because he's not hiding, not sure if he's eating yet.

I might try the salt next time because I'm not sure the tetracycline did any good, in fact it seemed that more scales came off after treatment. I will keep you updated.


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