Help! Betta is lethargic and is breathing heavy

Colin_T said:

You should try to do at least 3 doses of the current medication. If there's no improvement after 3 days with that medication, then flush the tank and try another.

You should also be wiping the inside of the tank down and replacing all the water before re-treating the tank with the current medication. (not sure if you are or not but you should)

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Thank you so much for all your help so far! Let's hope that my fish hangs on.

I tested the water and there was .25 ppm ammonia, 0 nitrites and nitrates. I did a 15% water change, but am unsure if I should just drain the whole tank instead. The kanaplex also came today so I am unsure of when to start using it.

Do huge/ complete water changes before adding another dose of medication or if there is a water quality problem.

The combination of a bacterial infection and ammonia poisoning can easily kill the fish. The water has to stay clean during treatment.

Is there any improvement after 3 days of Erythomycinc?
If not change to Kanamycin.

Colin_T said:

Is there any improvement after 3 days of Erythomycinc?
If not change to Kanamycin.

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Later tonight will be my third treatment of Erythomycin. I will do a complete water change tonight before medicating as well. I have also added 2 tbsps of aquarium salt. When I do the water change should I add the salt in again?

you can keep adding salt if you like but the anti-biotics should do the job, if they are going to work.

I did a 50% water change and he seems to be swimming around a little more, although he is still breathing heavy with clamped fins. I also took out the water lettuce since I think they were rotting(turning yellow with weird smell), but I still have a bunch of plant debris floating around.

My betta has just been sitting at around the same spot for about the whole day. He's still breathing heavy and occasionally goes up to the surface to breathe. Should I empty out the tank and switch to Kanamycin? I also have a filter cartilage with activate carbon that I could run.

He has fungus starting to grow where his dorsal fin was.

You can try the Kanamycin but he might be on his last legs.
If you want to use the kanamycin, just wipe the inside of the tank down, change all the water and treat him. If he doesn't improve in a couple of days, I would euthanise him.

His top fin isn't fuzzy, it was just bad camera glare. I'm giving him a nights rest from meds and if he's still here, I'm gonna try the kanamycin. I'm slowly preparing myself to let him go though. Thank you for all your help again.

I'm not sure if the kanaplex is working. Yesterday, he was lethargic and breathing heavy again so I did a water change and redosed the third dose of kanaplex. Today, he is swimming around and looking more normal. However, there is a patch of scales that look like they are pineconing. I'm not sure if it is dropsy or if he has an infection or rubbed off on something weird. It's only that one patch that look slightly raised. I have the option to take him to the vet but I cant really afford it and I'm not sure if it is worth the fees if he is about to pass on.

My betta is on his last legs, but I would still like to know if there is a diagnosis for him so I could prevent this from happening to fish I might get in the future. I have tried Kanamycin, Erythromycin, Nitrofurazone, and general cure (Metronidazole and Praziquantel) with little to no improvement. I have been doing daily water changes/ vacuming the gravel and adding seachem stressguard. The only reason I had not euthanized him yet is because he would still eat and swim. I originally though it was dropsy, since his scales would pinecone, but they would only pinecone in a specific patch and the scales would eventually fall off. His poop has looked normal as well. Today he just sits in the corner breathing heavy and he only moves to surface or eat, so I am thinking about euthanizing him soon. However, I would still like to know if anyone knows what illness he has.
These videos were all taken today. I have more media of the disease progression if wanted.

The scales pine coning and lifting off his back is from an infection underneath them. The skin becomes inflamed and causes the scales to lift and if it's bad, the scales fall out.

The red patch on his back looks like a bacterial infection, but it could be a bad external protozoan infection. However, there was an infection in the dorsal fin when this first started and that might have gotten into the tissue under the skin.

The fish might have a drug resistant bacterial infection, in which case it won't respond to anything.

It is rubbing on objects and that can be from poor water quality or an external protozoan infection.

The fish actually looks quite healthy and is definitely interested in food and checking out things in the tank. The lethargic behaviour and heavy breathing is probably associated with the infection, the fish is tired and weak but it wants to live.

You could try raising the water temperature to 30C for a couple of weeks and see if that helps. Or use an external protozoan treatment that contains copper or malachite green. Use that for 2 weeks and see if it helps.

Increase aeration to make sure the surface of the water is clean and free of any films.

Poor fish, 2 months of this.

itiwhetu said:

Poor fish, 2 months of this.

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Yeah. I took your advice and changed his water to remineralized RO/DI water as well so that the ph would be closer to 7 for him. Like I said, the only reason I didn't euthanize was because he was still swimming and eating regularly until now.

Colin_T said:

You could try raising the water temperature to 30C for a couple of weeks and see if that helps. Or use an external protozoan treatment that contains copper or malachite green. Use that for 2 weeks and see if it helps.

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Thank you! I'll raise the temperature first and try to get some more medicine. Someone else at my local fish store recommended for me to try Ich-X by Hikari after the general cure didn't work. I was wondering if you would also recommend the ich-x?