Fin rot, Melafix, etc.

[laze]

After some initial bouts with ich, fin rot, etc., our betta has been doing well for several months in his (unfiltered) 10 gallon tank (getting a 25-50% water change every 7-10 days). Recently, though, we noticed that his dorsal fin was starting to get a little ragged, so we added some salt and started treating him with Melafix.

First stupid question: the jar says one teaspoon for each 10 gallons, for seven days. This does mean that you just keep adding a teaspoon a day without any special water changes, right? It gets kind of cloudy in there, so I just wanted to make sure that that's right.

Anyway, after the seven days, his anal fin seemed to have a hole in it. We had to go away for a few days and when we came back (we did a 25% water change before we left), the fin had started to get ragged and I could see a hole developing in his dorsal fin as well.

I'm planning on a 50% water change tomorrow, adding some salt, and restarting the Melafix treatment for another week, as described above (meaning a week of Melafix with no water changes). Does that sound like the best course of action to you more experienced betta owners?

He seems OK otherwise... eating normally, etc. He's a little twitchy and seemed like he might be developing a couple of white dots or a little fuzz on his face, but that may have just been due to stress from the last water change. It didn't seem to get any worse while we were gone for the weekend, and may have even improved a bit.

 

[BettaMomma]

BLESS YOU for giving your betta such a wonderfully sized home.

I do have to ask though, do you vacuum your gravel? From what I understand, bettas need to have complete water changes at regular intervals if there's no filter in their tank. Someone who knows more about filtered tanks will hopefully come along and give you more info on it, though.

I'm guessing that's what the trouble is with the fin problems.

And, i've recently discovered BettaMax is a really good solution for finrot.

 

[AlexsDaddy]

One thing that could be causing the fin problems is more then likley water quality. With a non-filtered, non-cycled tank, when you do partial water changes all you are doing is diluting the ammonia, not getting rid of it. Over time the ammonia builds up to extremely high levels and over time will cause serious health problems for your betta (fin rot, ammonia poisening, velvet due to poor water quality, just to name a few of the many). With a 10 gallon tank, you might want to think about getting a gentle filter and cycle the tank. You could do it with the betta in, or get a 1 gallon bowl as a temporary home and do fishless cycling. That would decrease the number of water changes and be a lot more healthy for your betta and his fins. Do you do your water changes with a gravel vac, or just syphon water out? If you don't gravel vac, all the uneaten food and poop in the gravel is just sitting there rotting away creating even more ammonia then the betta himself is creating. All my tanks have filters, but I still gravel vac with every water change and you wouldn't believe the ammount of junk that I suck up. Anyway, after all that rambling, the point I'm trying to make is that it would be greatly benificial for your betta and his fins if you were to get a filter, or start doing a 100% water change at least once every 2 weeks, with 3 or 4 50% changes in between via gravel vac. To help with the fin problems, really clean water and salt are the best things to prevent infection and help healing.

 

[laze]

Thanks for the prompt responses! When I do a partial water change, I use one of those hand powered suction devices (not sure if that's the gravel vac you're talking about) to suck out the junk that's gathered at the bottom.

I like the idea of getting him a temporary 1 gallon bowl and doing the fishless cycling with a filter. I've never cycled a tank before, so what would be the best method if I'm doing it without the fish in there? Would it essentially be:

1. remove all the water,
2. clean tank items (fake plants, heater, gravel, etc.)
3. get everything back in place and add filter
4. add clean tap water with conditioner
5. wait a few hours
6. add the fish back into the newly clean and filtered tank

? Am I missing anything? Anything else I can do to minimize the stress on the fish? How long should I keep in his temporary home -- could I do this all in one night so he's not in an unheated bowl for too long?

 

[SRC]

It takes several weeks to cycle a tank, not a few hours . You have to wait for the Ammonia and Nitrites to settle down and stay down before adding fish.

http/www.pet-emporium.com/files/index.php?id=16

http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?showto...=fishless+cycle

 

[laze]

Ah, OK. As you can tell, I'm still a beginner at this.