Sick betta, aquarium cycling

TLDR: Female betta with visible ich for 4 days (4 maximum spots and 1 current spot) is breath fast and has lowered activity. Is it possible a secondary disease and if so, what could it be?

Our family is trying to set up a sorority betta tank and have not been having any luck getting the tank fully cycled and my fish continue to suffer. We currently only have 11 betta fish in it and 2 cory catfish.

We love all 11 of the betta fish we currently have, and we have had some losses, many of which were favorites over the last 3 months. We only have 1 of our very first bettas from just over 3 months ago starting out with a 3 tank betta falls aquarium. Way too small, followed by a 6 gallon round aquarium and then the move to the 75 gallon aquarium.

We have a 75 gallon display aquarium and a 10 gallon hospital aquarium. The main tank is bothersome and the hospital aquarium is a total disaster so far.

We had the 75 gallon set up before for about 10 total weeks and it never built a biological filter to change ammonia to nitrite, it was very adapt at creating ammonia though. So we tore it down and reset it back up 5 weeks ago.

It is set up with a reverse under gravel filter using 4 feed tubes from the canister filter with 3/4 inch river rock substrate along with an Aqueon Quietflow 400 canister filter that has a single intake through a small pore size sponge filter to keep large particles from clogging the canister filter media. This allows frequent cleaning and increases the period of time before the canister filter needs to be serviced. I want to limit the servicing to ensure the biological filter remains strong.

The canister water path starts by going through a large pore sponge filter followed by a thin layer of Matrix media followed by a floss filter in the first tray
The second tray is filled completely with the Matrix media.
The third tray has more matrix media and another layer of floss filter.
The canister filter outlet feeds through 6 total pipes, 4 go to the under gravel filter and 2 go to the 2 water polishing units with a limited flow to keep surface water slow enough for bettas.
I have one of the polishing units using the original carbon filter and the other I have made a filter that has crushed coral in it to increase PH and build the carbon root.
One of the under gravel filter feeds has an inline CO2 diffuser (CO2 Art) with a 1 bubble per 6 seconds for 11 hours to help plant growth.
I have amazon swords and anubias in the aquarium.
I am aiming for the maximum potential biological filter so we can build up our sorority.

I treat the water with API stress coat when doing water exchanges in advance of adding the tap water.

I added Fritz Aquatics 80223 FritzZyme 7 Nitrifying Bacteria for Fresh Water Aquariums to jumpstart the aquarium cycling on day one.

We gave the aquarium 2-1/2 weeks after initial set up before moving the 11 betta fish from the hospital aquarium. We would have liked to let it go 4 weeks, but keeping 11 betta and 2 cory in a 10 gallon aquarium did not seem to be a better alternative. We felt that keeping the 11 betta in the small 10 gallon was too much for the aquarium to handle longer than a couple weeks. We did daily 1 gallon water changes the first week, but then slacked off and did a 50% water change the second week. No ammonia built up in that aquarium at all.

Everything was fine for 2 weeks after moving the 11 bettas to the main tank, we are at 5 total weeks for the new cycling of the aquarium at this point in time.

We do 20% water changes weekly and I do 16 in one strip testing every other day and ammonia testing (API freshwater kit) daily.

A bit overkill in general, but since the aquarium is cycling I do not want to miss something.

We feed the betta at 9AM and 9PM and the cory 1 time per day in the morning.

Water quality is as follows and has been mostly stable except where noted (PH, temperature, carbonate)

78F normal aquarium temperature currently set at 86F for treating the ich.
7.4 - 7.6 PH (digital test, test strip and API liquid test) It was lower (6.2 - 6.6) a few days before the ich happened, so I added 2 tablespoons of baking soda to bring it up.
0 - 0.25 Ammonia closer to 0 (only a slightly green color, mostly yellow)
0 - 0.25 Nitrite closer to 0 (extremely light color)
0 Nitrate
25 - 50 mg/L hardness general
no chlorine (total or free)
no bromine
no lead
no iron
no chromium
no copper
no mercury
50 - 100 mg/L fluoride (not sure where this comes from, maybe strips are inaccurate)
20- 40 mg/L carbonate root
120 - 180 mg/l total alkalinity

Specific gravity 1.0003 - 1.0008 (estimated, it is below 1.001 but above 1.0000)

4 days ago we noticed ich on some of the fish. I have not had any luck using the hospital aquarium to treat bettas with super ich cure, so this time I decided to try a different type of treatment with no medication so I could work on the main aquarium without damaging the biological filter. Increased water temperature and salt baths.

I increased the temperature in 3f increments per 12 hours and have been giving them 15 minute salt baths daily with 1/2 tablespoon per 1/2 gallon aquarium water in a heated 1 gallon bucket and returning the bath water into the aquarium. With weekly water changes the change in salinity should remain stable, normally I add 17 grams of salt to the aquarium per 10 gallons water changed anyways.

Even in such a tiny space, the bettas seems to be extremely friendly and so far, after 3 bath cycles we have not noticed any of the betta to be trying to avoid us catching them to put into the bath. So I do not feel they are heavily stressed.

The ich seems to be going away and most of the fish seem happy and very active even while having ich. We have reasonably strong bubblers to ensure oxygen levels are good that feed directly beneath the polishing units to minimize total aquarium water velocity and most of the fish spend a good part of the day playing in the bubbles. We have 3 floating Amazon Sword and 4 surface planted in a cup anubias plants along with 5 floating betta logs for them to rest and hide. We also have several anubias in the substrate.

But now one betta seems to be struggling with her gills open moderately and pumping and taking about 2 breaths per second. She is still eating and somewhat active, but has begun to spend some time in hiding places where she did not do this a week ago.

She had about 4 total ich spots 4 days ago and has 1 today. Otherwise she appears healthy other than the gills and the fast breathing. Does anyone have any idea what might be the cause of this?

Also, if anyone has any advice on improved maintaining this aquarium or on how to make the isolation/hospital aquarium valuable, I would appreciate any input.

The hospital aquarium is Aqueon LED 10 Gallon Aquarium Kit, 22.88" L X 12.75" W X 13.88" H with standard cheap white gravel. It has a petco Half Tube with Coco and Plant (Bolbitis Sp.).

If a tropical fish has white spot you can normally treat it by raising the water temperature to 30C (86F) and keeping it there for 2 weeks, or at least 1 week after all the spots have gone.

Salt does not treat white spot.

Increase aeration/ surface turbulence when raising the temperature because warm water holds less oxygen than cool water.

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Before you raise the water temperature, do a 80-90% water change and complete gravel clean. This will remove a lot of the parasites from the water and substrate.
Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it's added to the tank.


Clean the filter too. Wash the filter materials/ media in a bucket of tank water and re-use them. Tip the bucket of dirty water on the garden/ lawn. Cleaning the filter means less gunk and cleaner water with fewer pathogens.

Do not replace filter media/ materials because you get rid of the good filter bacteria and end up with water quality problems (ammonia and nitrite).

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You can insulate the base back and sides of the tank with 1 inch thick polystyrene foam sheets (available from any pet shop). Just tape them onto the outside of the tank and they will help stop heat loss.

You can have a coverglass on top of the tank. Use glass that is 4, 5 or 6mm thick. Thinner glass tends to chip and crack more easily. The coverglass will also trap heat and make it easier on the heater.

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If you can't warm the water up to 30C, use a white spot medication that contains Malachite green or copper. Copper is safer but kills shrimp and snails.
Make sure you don't overdose with medications.
Remove carbon from the filter before using medications.

Colin_T​

Good information, thanks.

Odd about the salt baths, lots of places online say to do the salt baths. We can stop doing those.

With such a large water change, we will probably need to take the fish out while doing it, since doing it by buckets for 60 gallons will not be reasonable while maintaining conditioning and water temperature. This will also cause a significant change in PH and carbonate root/alkalinity unless I add baking soda again...

Pull the fish out, clean the gravel while draining 60 gallons, clean the filter and media, put the filter back, add water conditioner, fill the aquarium with 86 degree tap water, restart the bubbles and filter, wait an hour or so to make sure temperature is stable and the water conditioner has cycled through and removed all chlorine. add baking soda if PH is too low.

Heater is like 800 watts so is able to maintain temperature well enough.

So far we are at 3 days at temperature, but have only done one 20% water change. Most of the ich spots have gone away on most of the fish some have none already.

My biggest concern right now is Sol, the fish that I made a video of with the heavy breathing. I am concerned she might have a different disease and need more treatment. Is there any additional information I can provide that would help diagnose her?

You don't remove the fish when doing a water change. Just leave them in the tank and they can swim around in shallow water for a few minutes while you refill the tank.

If you only have 11 Bettas and 2 Corydoras, you could probably move them into the 10 gallon to treat. Then just drain and refill the big tank and heat it to 30C (86F). Reduce the heat after 2 weeks.

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If you do regular water changes, there shouldn't be any major difference in the tap water vs the aquarium water, and you can usually do a huge water change without any noticeable change in water chemistry (pH, GH & KH).

If you don't do regular water changes, then there might be a change in water chemistry.

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The white spot parasite has 3 stages to its life cycle.

1) the white dots on the fish.

2) the white dots drop off the fish and sit in the gravel. The parasite inside the white dot divides and reproduces.

3) the white dots in the gravel rupture open and release hundreds of new parasite that re-infect the fish. This is the only time you can kill the parasites, when they are swimming around the water looking for a new host. Once they attach themselves to a fish, and while they are in the substrate dividing, they cannot be killed.

Your tank is at stage 2 of their life cycle.

The following link has information about white spot if you are interested. Post #1 & #16 are worth a read.

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Bettas and Corydoras naturally occur in soft acid water (pH below 7.0 and GH below 150ppm). If your water is slightly acid you shouldn't need to add any pH buffers.

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The fish that is breathing heavily may have had white spot on the gills. The parasite chews a small hole in the fish and drinks its blood for a few days before dropping off the fish and falling to the substrate where it divides. Meanwhile, the fish produces a scab over the sore and it eventually heals up but leaves a small scar.

If the gills had a lot of white spot parasites on them, the scar tissue reduces the fish's ability to breath, and they can suffocate. However, Bettas are labyrinth fishes and these fish have an organ in their head that lets them take air from the atmosphere and the labyrinth organs removes oxygen from the air and put it into the body. this allows Bettas and gouramis to survive in water with very low oxygen levels.

The heavy breathing is probably from the white spot but could be gill flukes, fungus or bacteria. Salt should have dealt with any minor bacterial or fungal infections and possibly even gill flukes.

A big water change and gravel clean might help with the breathing, especially if there is lots of gunk in the gravel. Cleaning the filter might help for the same reason. Increasing aeration/ surface turbulence can help by increasing the oxygen levels in the water.

Well, we stopped the salt baths, raised the temperature to 86 and the ICK has gone away.

The sick female continued to look worse, so we took her out and put her in the hospital tank and raised the temperature to 86 and treated her with Maracyn Oxy but then she developed dropsy and pop eye, so we have been treating her with API general cure and Maraxyn Oxy and her scales have finally begun to close back up.

She did not eat for about 5 days, but she has regained her appetite along with her scales clearing up and her eyes are looking normal again.

Her scales are not fully closed, how long should we continue to treat her for dropsy? Until they are fully closed, or should we cut the medications to allow her less stress so she can heal her body?

astonerii said:

Her scales are not fully closed, how long should we continue to treat her for dropsy? Until they are fully closed, or should we cut the medications to allow her less stress so she can heal her body?

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What do the instructions on the medication say?

Normally you keep using anti-biotics for 7 days. If the fish is still showing symptoms and not eating, then you can continue for another 7 days but that should be it. However, since your fish is eating, then a total treatment time should only need to be 7 days. But if the scales are still sticking out from the body, then maybe continue treatment for a few more days.

14 days should be about maximum to treating. If it hasn't improved after that, it's not going to and you need different medication.