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Calistakay83

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I'm new to Betta keeping and my guy has fin rot and I'm scared I'm going to hurt him or my beneficial bacteria with this medicine I have for him. Ive only had my tank running for 2 months. Can someone point me in the right direction where to begin?? I have aquarium salt, mardel maracyn, and a.p.i. e.m. erythromycin
 
Post pictures of the fish.

Fin rot is caused by poor water quality that damages the skin and allows harmful bacteria and fungus into the wound.

The best treatment for fin rot is clean water and salt.

Do not use anti-biotics (Maracyn, Erythromycin) unless the fish have a known bacterial infection that has not responded to normal treatments. Improper use and mis-use of anti-biotics has lead to drug resistant bacteria that kill people, birds, fish and animals.

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TREATMENT
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. It also removes a lot of the gunk and this means any medication can work on treating the fish instead of being wasted killing the pathogens in the gunk.
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. Cleaning the filter means less gunk and cleaner water with fewer pathogens.

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

Add some salt, (see directions below).

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SALT
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.

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, Bettas & 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, 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.

When 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.

If there's no improvement after a few water changes and salt, post more pictures.
 
The first picture is when I got Hiri about 6. Weeks ago and then the other picture was jus yesterday. Also someone from my Facebook group suggested that I don't treat the whole tank with salt, only him. But wouldn't the funk affecting him still be in the water if I pulled him out and treated him with a salt bath and not the entire tank?? I asked him the same thing and nobody ever responded back to me.
 

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The first picture is when I got Hiri about 6. Weeks ago and then the other picture was jus yesterday. Also someone from my Facebook group suggested that I don't treat the whole tank with salt, only him. But wouldn't the funk affecting him still be in the water if I pulled him out and treated him with a salt bath and not the entire tank?? I asked him the same thing and nobody ever responded back to me.
Oh dear, he definitely has stuff going on with his fins and tail. I wish I could help, he is a gorgeous fish!
 

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