Betta Fin Rot and Catappa Leaves (+wrapping tail around things?)

[alli789]

My betta has fin rot. I've been treating for just under a week so I'm sure I just need to be patient, but I've only had the little guy about 2 months, so I'm really hoping he can recover. I started treating with catappa leaves 6 days ago. I had one leaf in the tank and the water was slightly noticeably dark. I just added a second leaf to the tank yesterday to get more tannins and today the water is nice and dark. How quickly should I see improvement? I think his fins look a bit worse today, as there's a new stringy piece that almost looks like it's about to fall off. Photos below, the one where he's facing right is last week and the ones where he's facing left were today.
Please let me know opinions. Does he look way worse than last week? I'm new to this and I just want to help my little guy.
If the leaves don't seem to work, I think I'll try aquarium salt next? I hear mixed things about medications so I'm trying to use natural remedies first but if anyone more experienced has other recommendations please let me know.
Also, he wraps his tail around things a lot. He's always done it. It's almost always his heater, but I'll occasionally see him do it to other stuff, like his logs, as well. I wanted to make sure this isn't a sign of something bad? I read that he probably just likes the warmth or he's cold but I didn't know if it could be affecting the fin rot.

(My tank is fully cycled, 10 gallons heated at 78 degrees. Tested parameters last week when I noticed the fin rot and ammonia and nitrite were both zero, should still be. Nitrate was 25, and due to high tap nitrates that's the lowest I've ever recorded them. So, parameters seem very good for my tank. I'm doing 20% water changes weekly and I'm thinking I'll add in an additional 10% change mid week until the fin rot clears up? I'm kind of unable to do more often or larger water changes as my tap water is very high in nitrate, so I use a blend with distilled water to bring it down. I also have hard water, so I have to bypass the softener and the water is cold. It's complicated and hard to explain in full, but if I do bigger changes, the tank temperature will drop too low.)

 

[EmmaTheCabbage]

one thing I’d personally recommend (some may disagree) is using hydrogen peroxide on the infected areas. I’ve done this a few times on my Betta and it worked like a charm. Can stress them out a bit but is an instant fix. Look for something at around 3% peroxide and u take the fish out of the tank, put him on a waterproof surface, spread his tail out and dab on the peroxide at the very edges. Leave it to react for about 10sec or so then plop him back in. Do this twice total (once each day for 2 days) and you should notice new tail growth about 3 days after. Would be interesting to know what caused yours rot. Have u got any other fish with him? Sometimes rot can happen when other fish nip at fins or if the get torn on ornaments. In my opinions peroxide is the way to go though.

 

[itiwhetu]

one thing I’d personally recommend (some may disagree) is using hydrogen peroxide on the infected areas. I’ve done this a few times on my Betta and it worked like a charm. Can stress them out a bit but is an instant fix. Look for something at around 3% peroxide and u take the fish out of the tank, put him on a waterproof surface, spread his tail out and dab on the peroxide at the very edges. Leave it to react for about 10sec or so then plop him back in. Do this twice total (once each day for 2 days) and you should notice new tail growth about 3 days after. Would be interesting to know what caused yours rot. Have u got any other fish with him? Sometimes rot can happen when other fish nip at fins or if the get torn on ornaments. In my opinions peroxide is the way to go though.

Really you do this

 

[Colin_T]

Fin rot is caused by poor water quality and or a dirty environment, which damages the fish and allows bad bacteria to get into the tissue. The normal treatment is to clean the tank up and add salt.

--------------------
Wipe the inside of the glass down with a clean fish sponge.

Do a 75% water change and gravel clean the substrate every day for a week. The water changes and gravel cleaning will reduce the number of disease organisms in the water and provide a cleaner environment for the fish to recover in.
Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it is added to the tank.

Clean the filter if it hasn't been done in the last 2 weeks. However, if the filter is less than 6 weeks old, do not clean it. 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.

Increase surface turbulence/ aeration when using salt or medications because they reduce the dissolved oxygen in the water.

Add some salt (see directions below).

--------------------
You can add rock salt (often sold as aquarium salt) or swimming pool salt to the aquarium at the dose rate of 1 heaped tablespoon per 20 litres of water. If there is no improvement after 48 hours you can double that dose rate so there is 2 heaped tablespoons of salt per 20 litres.

If you only have livebearers (guppies, platies, swordtails, mollies), goldfish or rainbowfish in the tank you can double that dose rate, so you would add 2 heaped tablespoons per 20 litres and if there is no improvement after 48 hours, then increase it so there is a total of 4 heaped tablespoons of salt per 20 litres.

Keep the salt level like this for at least 2 weeks but no longer than 4 weeks otherwise kidney damage can occur. Kidney damage is more likely to occur in fish from soft water (tetras, Corydoras, angelfish, gouramis, loaches) that are exposed to high levels of salt for an extended period of time, and is not an issue with livebearers, rainbowfish or other salt tolerant species.

The salt will not affect the beneficial filter bacteria but the higher dose rate (4 heaped tablespoons per 20 litres) will affect some plants and some snails. The lower dose rate (1-2 heaped tablespoons per 20 litres) will not affect fish, plants, shrimp or snails.

After you use salt and the fish have recovered, you do a 10% water change each day for a week using only fresh water that has been dechlorinated. Then do a 20% water change each day for a week. Then you can do bigger water changes after that. This dilutes the salt out of the tank slowly so it doesn't harm the fish.

If you do water changes while using salt, you need to treat the new water with salt before adding it to the tank. This will keep the salt level stable in the tank and minimise stress on the fish.

 

[EmmaTheCabbage]

Really you do this

Ye. Was a little bit scary but the Betta was completely fine and it worked super well. I think it’s better than meds because you directly treat the tail. Very quick and simple. From what I understand the peroxide removed the top layers of cells where the rot is. As long as you don’t get any on the gills and head and preferably the body too, you should be all good. You can also keep him still by placing a wet paper towel over him.

 

[alli789]

Fin rot is caused by poor water quality and or a dirty environment, which damages the fish and allows bad bacteria to get into the tissue. The normal treatment is to clean the tank up and add salt.

--------------------
Wipe the inside of the glass down with a clean fish sponge.

Do a 75% water change and gravel clean the substrate every day for a week. The water changes and gravel cleaning will reduce the number of disease organisms in the water and provide a cleaner environment for the fish to recover in.
Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it is added to the tank.

Clean the filter if it hasn't been done in the last 2 weeks. However, if the filter is less than 6 weeks old, do not clean it. 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.

Increase surface turbulence/ aeration when using salt or medications because they reduce the dissolved oxygen in the water.

Add some salt (see directions below).

--------------------
You can add rock salt (often sold as aquarium salt) or swimming pool salt to the aquarium at the dose rate of 1 heaped tablespoon per 20 litres of water. If there is no improvement after 48 hours you can double that dose rate so there is 2 heaped tablespoons of salt per 20 litres.

If you only have livebearers (guppies, platies, swordtails, mollies), goldfish or rainbowfish in the tank you can double that dose rate, so you would add 2 heaped tablespoons per 20 litres and if there is no improvement after 48 hours, then increase it so there is a total of 4 heaped tablespoons of salt per 20 litres.

Keep the salt level like this for at least 2 weeks but no longer than 4 weeks otherwise kidney damage can occur. Kidney damage is more likely to occur in fish from soft water (tetras, Corydoras, angelfish, gouramis, loaches) that are exposed to high levels of salt for an extended period of time, and is not an issue with livebearers, rainbowfish or other salt tolerant species.

The salt will not affect the beneficial filter bacteria but the higher dose rate (4 heaped tablespoons per 20 litres) will affect some plants and some snails. The lower dose rate (1-2 heaped tablespoons per 20 litres) will not affect fish, plants, shrimp or snails.

After you use salt and the fish have recovered, you do a 10% water change each day for a week using only fresh water that has been dechlorinated. Then do a 20% water change each day for a week. Then you can do bigger water changes after that. This dilutes the salt out of the tank slowly so it doesn't harm the fish.

If you do water changes while using salt, you need to treat the new water with salt before adding it to the tank. This will keep the salt level stable in the tank and minimise stress on the fish.

Just started treating with salt, thank you! Are bettas a fish that might get kidney damage from long exposure? Or are they ok if it takes longer to remove all the salt?

 

[Colin_T]

Bettas are related to gouramis and don't naturally occur in water with salt, so they are susceptible to kidney problems if they are exposed to salt for too long.

When using salt on Bettas, use 1 or 2 heaped tablespoons of salt for every 20 litres (5 gallons) of tank water.

It normally only takes about 2 weeks of salt treatment to fix fin rot, assuming the tank conditions are cleaned up.

 

[hansgruber7]

I wonder if the persistently high nitrates could be harming him. My tap water had high ammonia and nitrates so I ended up buying an RO Buddy and that solved my problem. You could mix the RO water with your tap water.

 

[alli789]

I wonder if the persistently high nitrates could be harming him. My tap water had high ammonia and nitrates so I ended up buying an RO Buddy and that solved my problem. You could mix the RO water with your tap water.

I mix my tap with distilled water in a 50/50 blend. I'd think that would help as well?

 

[alli789]

I also do have some red root floaters that are ready to go in the tank that I'm hoping will help with the nitrates, but they are the few survivors of slow USPS shipping and if I killed them now from the salt exposure I'd be so mad. Anyone know if red root floaters will tolerate the betta treatment level of aquarium salt? I know it's not supposed to kill plants but..