betta trouble

[wherryj]

Thanks for the info. I will try to slowly acclimate him, since this fish has more personality than other bettas I've had. He's like a part of the family.

The new tank is an Eclipse 12. I hope that the combination of Biowheel and undergravel will help out since tanks under 30 gallons are more difficult to stabilize. I think that my fish is rather prone to fin rot since he had a case within one week of placing him in the NEW 2 gallon tank. That shouldn't have been overly stressful for a betta I would think.

I am not sure how a 100% water change works (everything I've read says not to do it), but we have a betta at the office in a 1 gallon tank. The staff do VERY occasional 100% water changes, and the fish has never had a problem. The light also stays on 24 hours a day 7 days a week so I'm not sure how he sleeps. I guess that he's lucky that we are a medical office, and that the nurses are doing their changes with distilled water (though it lacks certain essential elements-by report, it lacks the "swill" characteristics that Zone 7 water has around here.

I'm glad that your's do so well. I'm going to forget the advice from my LPS to decrease my changes to every month (I had been doing at least weekly). I think that's what got me into the trouble I'm in currently.

Anyone have any good ideas about exactly how to slowly acclimate the betta? I still have his original cup that I purchased him in. I was considering using this, but it doesn't have a lot of volume to do slow water additions...

 

[Mollymomma]

How about taking a ziploc bag instead of the cup that way you have more room to add the new tank water and you can float the zip closed bag in top of tank.
I have gotten alot of conflicting advice for my guys. Add salt, don't add salt, full changes etc.. I now rarely listen to the lps..I get most of my info here now. The best thing to do sometimes is go with your gut reaction.. You know you're fish(just like raising kids) and what works for one may not work for the other...One of my lfs tells me my guys are spoiled LOL yep and they me for it.
Let me know how you do

 

[wherryj]

Well, I made the move. I had a transient problem with him stuck in the net while transfering him into the zip-lock, but he seemed to do well for about 36 to 48 hours. In fact, he seemed to LOVE the new, larger tank, and seemed to play almost continuously after his initial investigation.

Then, the fungus appeared to come back. He also developed a mouth fungus (something I haven't noticed on him since he joined us). I only added the Bettamax after the mouth fungus developed, hoping that it was a short-term adjustment thing, and that he'd be able to heal himself with the better water quality and some "Stress Shield".

It appeared to be WAY too late when I added it (about 18 hours after first signs of fungus). He became listless, often laying on his side. The mouth fungus at one point became so bad that his mouth appeared to be completely covered. He lay weakly gasping on the bottom of the tank until I got him to swim upwards by directing him with my net. I encircled him at the top of the tank (without touching him) and used a "Q-tip" to remove the covering fungus by pinning it against the net and allowing him to pull it off (he had been attempting this himself for several hours by scraping backwards on plants in the tank before appearing to be succoming to suffocation).

At this point he appeared to just look at me with appreciation (I figured that he'd be very startled-like he usually is). This was two days ago. Since that time he's been alternating between some mild swimming around the tank and looking like he's about ready to die again. I found him huddled up in a pot decoration on his side about an hour ago. After stirring the water, he popped back to the upright position, but appears to only be calmly/barely beathing.

Is he likely to recover fully? Any ideas?

 

[wherryj]

He's doing great and hardly acts like he was sick at all. He seems to love playing in the currents, and is back to interacting with us.

This betta seems very susceptible to fungal infections. He has a new 12 gallon tank ALL to himself, so if it occurs again I doubt that it's water quality.

What else would cause me to have to treat funus so often?