Help- Microorganisms in planted betta tank, parasitic or beneficial?

[cvroyce]

Hi! I have had a betta fish in a planted 3.5 gal tank for 1.5 years. Recently I noticed my fish, Ollie, has been turning down food and seeming to have a harder time swimming than usual (he has never been the most elegant swimmer bc of his fins weight). I noticed little white specs in the tank and freaked out that it might be parasites of some sort. I haven’t introduced new plants in several months. I have never noticed it before. I moved my fish to an isolation tank and have been giving betta fin fix, I don’t see anything on him but I am concerned. I took a water sample to the pet store and they said it was mostly fine, but they didn’t know what to make of the things in the water. Does anyone have experience with these or know what they are? Are they harmful to my fish? I really think I see tiny legs but the camera can’t pick it up. They look kind of like Google image searches of fish lice but none are on the fish and they are so tiny. I have also noticed a significant decrease in algae lately, could they be responsible? How can I determine if these are parasitic or good for my tank?

 

[GaryE]

It could be epystilis, which can become a parasite of sick fish. It rarely bothers healthy ones. Or it could be something else. There's no rule of good or bad micro-organisms. Wipe the glass and up the water changes.

I've seen fish lice a few times, and that is not them.

I think if you get yourself a Betta splendens with such over the top finnage, you'll have to expect health problems and a much shorter life. That is a lot of weight to haul around, and a lot of potentially folded fins to catch fungus or bacteria. There's a point where fancy breeding produces health problems.

 

[cvroyce]

It could be epystilis, which can become a parasite of sick fish. It rarely bothers healthy ones. Or it could be something else. There's no rule of good or bad micro-organisms. Wipe the glass and up the water changes.

I've seen fish lice a few times, and that is not them.

I think if you get yourself a Betta splendens with such over the top finnage, you'll have to expect health problems and a much shorter life. That is a lot of weight to haul around, and a lot of potentially folded fins to catch fungus or bacteria. There's a point where fancy breeding produces health problems.

Thank you! I appreciate your response, I will do several water changes while I keep him in the isolation tank. Do you think eliminating the mircroorganisms is more important than maintaining the healthy bacteria in my gravel? I have been debating if I should do a deep clean and replace the gravel to eliminate the problem.
He was my first fish and at the time I didn’t realize how much breeding for large fins would impact him, now I just try to give him lots of things to sit on! My second betta is more ethically sourced and smaller finned, and much more active because of it!

 

[GaryE]

I would simply be sure to do one or two water changes every week. I wouldn't worry about a deep clean. Mr Fins is vulnerable, and that's why twice weekly might make sense. Once a week, 30-40% for sure.

If his fins stay folded too long as he ages, he'll be attacked. You can make it worse with dirty water, but clean water will just reduce the risk, not eliminate it.

You may have been overfeeding...

 

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

Don't replace the gravel, just use a small gravel vac to give it a decent clean as you do water changes. Do you usually use a gravel vac/syphon on the tank? Gunk and mulm does accumulate in gravel, which isn't always a bad thing, sometimes the micro critters are just clean up crew and provide free fish food for tiny fish, and an overabundance of them in a tank where you don't want them (they're too small for a betta to eat them all when it's easier just to eat what you give him).

However, if you don't usually gravel vac or clean the gravel, don't go stirring it up yet, I can link you to a video on how to properly gravel vac deep into the gravel a bit a time, so you gradually reduce the muck and mulm, without stirring it all up at once and throwing it all into the water column and filter - that can cause problems. Better to gradually clean the surface area with a vac, then next water change do a deeper clean in one area at a time, since some nasty things can also thrive and accumulate in dirty gravel.

Water changes won't affect your cycle, don't worry. The nitrifying bacteria that process the fish waste are pretty hardy, and they don't live in the water column - they attach themselves to surfaces, and pretty firmly, with a protective sort of shield over them. That's one part of why we have filters, those bacteria colonise all over and in the sponges and any other filter media you use like ceramics or cartridges.

They also attach to the glass, and the substrate - the gravel will be hosting a good amount of the nitrifying bacteria in your tank after a year and a half, and don't forget that live plants take up ammonia, and faster than the bacteria can process it into nitrites and then nitrates, so your plants will be helping too.

Don't think in terms of eliminating the micro critters, unlikely to be lice or anything dangerous, most likely seed shrimp or daphnia, or something else harmless that's just overpopulated, and will be reduced with increased, methodical gravel cleaning and water changes. Rinse the filter media in removed tank water, not under the tap, since chlorine kills bacteria, and that would knock your cycle back a bit, and removing the gravel and replacing it with something else would definitely mean throwing away a good chunk of the nitrifying bacteria in your tank and potentially cause an ammonia spike.

Sorry for ramble, I'm tired and never good at being concise! Do you have a gravel vac? What's your usual tank cleaning routine?

 

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

An addition, welcome to the forum! No judgement on being newer to the hobby, we all were beginners at one point, and it's clear you care about your fish! We're here to help, so don't worry if you've already done a deep clean or replaced the gravel or anything, those things are fixable too (usually just with extra water changes while the bacteria catch up again), and I've found some really useful videos that I found useful, and often link to people in your kind of situation! So don't be afraid to say what your usual maintenance routine is or has been, and we can make suggestions to manage it and reduce the microcritter issue, and ease your worries about any harm coming to your betta.

 

[cvroyce]

Thank you so much, I really appreciate the advice! I usually do a partial water change every 2 or 3 weeks depending on how the algae is and how my water test strips look, but this time I was definitely running a bit behind. I usually do a full clean every three months or so where I take everything out and wash it with warm water before putting it all back together. I do not use a gravel vac, I’ve heard of them before but the ones I looked at online seemed too large for my little tanks, and I didn’t know where to get started with them. Since I didn’t know what was going on I just put my fish in my emergency tank and kept the other intact until I could sort out what was going on. Since then I removed and replaced about 70% of the water, and I put in a new filter cartridge. There seem to be fewer microorganisms, but now that there are less I can tell they are concentrated in the gravel, and there are too many for me to feel comfortable putting my fish back in (although he is quite grumpy about his temporary tank). Thanks so much for the explanation, the nitrogen cycle never quite made sense to me but you explained it very well!