Fin rot on massive scale!

[Jezah]

Ok, I am the fish person at the LFS I work at, and just recently almost half of our bettas came down with fin rot. The white or paler colored ones seemed to be hit hardest. We have so far lost 3 white/pale ones. The fins are either clear at the ends and fraying or curly and slimy looking. We are currently adding bettafix to the water of ALL of them, but i heard salt is a good remedy. I am concerned and unsure how to go about using salt in such small cups? How much Aquarium salt do I use? Also, with BettaFix...does it work instantly cause right now we use one bucket of clean filtered water to fill all the cups and it would be ten times easier to just add BettaFix to the big bucket then the individual cups...but I dont know how BettaFix works so if works as soon as you drop it into the cup then the bucket thing wont work. Eeeeeeeeeeee....HELP!

 

[mm_simb]

Bettafix does not work instantly. The medicine just stays in the water. I'm not sure how much salt you would have to use but can you just put the salt in a large bucket and put the required amount in the bucket? You would need 1/2 of a tablespoon for 2.5 gallons. You would have to let all the little crystals dissolve into the water before putting it inside the cups. Hopefully someone else will be able to help you further.

 

[BettaMomma]

If you can figure out how big your bucket is - you'll want to add one tablespoon for 5 gallons (already pointed out, just felt like saying it again ) and add the BettaFix right to the bucket. You will need to make sure the salt gets dissolved first so there are no crystals left at all - then stir or shake it up good to make sure the salt and meds are evenly distributed before they go into each cup.

Do be patient with the BettaFix - give it some time. However - if you see the finrot progressively getting worse, you might want to move on to something stronger, BUT... being a lfs, you probably won't want to medicate fish if you don't have to before you sell them. Also - can I ask you how often you change the water on your fish? Are they kept in those little cups? More frequent water changes could fix the issue w/finrot that you're having also..

I have to say - how very responsible of you, as a lfs employee, to actually go and do some research on how to fix up your not-quite-perfectly-healthy fish in your store. I highly commend you for that. If only more people were like you, there would be a lot less people like us crabbing about how these fish are treated.

 

[Jezah]

I try, its hard to get my managers to spring for store-using meds. I usually end up bringing my own fish supplies to work and fixing the fishes that way. I feel so bad for our Bettas, I am only part-time...and the other not-so-great employees dont clean the cups everyday like I like to. At least they get clean whenever I am in. But right now i am stuck, I told them to use BettaFix till I got more info, and the BettaFix says use for 7 days before changing water. So now my smart-ass boss thinks she is a fish expert and wont let me clean the cups for another week.

 

[mm_simb]

Tell her that if they were in bigger containers that would be the case...but in such small cups they need clean water everyday.
Actually, nevermind. Don't want to get you fired