Help! White Dots On Female Bettas Tail!

Fishyluvr

New Member
Joined
Sep 20, 2008
Messages
22
Reaction score
0
Location
in your closet =P
Um today I noticed on my female betta there are little white dots on her fins :sad: . It's not coloration it's like little puny spheres. Could it be fin itch? Shes in a 50 Gal. community tank with a variety of other fish. Should I move her to the 10 Gal. Hospital tank with a mollie that had fin rot(and still does a little bit)? I dunno what to do! oh, also whats wierd about my female betta is that she loves nets :blink: ! When I put a net in the tank the other fish run away but she swims right into the net and stays there swimming around in the net! I think its crazy. Well help would be GREATLY APPRECIATED :hyper:
 
Um today I noticed on my female betta there are little white dots on her fins :sad: . It's not coloration it's like little puny spheres. Could it be fin itch? Shes in a 50 Gal. community tank with a variety of other fish. Should I move her to the 10 Gal. Hospital tank with a mollie that had fin rot(and still does a little bit)? I dunno what to do! oh, also whats wierd about my female betta is that she loves nets :blink: ! When I put a net in the tank the other fish run away but she swims right into the net and stays there swimming around in the net! I think its crazy. Well help would be GREATLY APPRECIATED :hyper:


Hi, Fishyluvr,
an expert will undoubtedly show up to give detailed advice shortly; just so you're not waiting for a response, I'll just mention that you're absolutely right that this sounds like ich, which naturally requires prompt treatment as it propagates so explosively.
And I'm afraid that the community is likely infected as well.
I don't know what tank inhabitants other than mollies are present, but salt would certainly be the cheapest treatment oif the entire 50 gallons needs to be treated, and mollies certainly won't mind that, lol.
And someone will soon be along to offer any advice required.
Your betta sounds adorable - aren't they the friendliest creatures?
 
Your best bet is always to quarantine a sick fish. Although putting that female in with another fish that may have finrot probably isn't the best idea. The fact that your betta has ich most likely means that her immune system is down. So, she might be susceptible to picking up another disease.

Check your other fish very carefully, they most likely have it too. Even if they do not, you should treat the entire community tank. Ich is a parasite that can live without a host for a couple days.

So considering those things, just leave your female betta in the community tank and treat as follows:

As long as you do not have carbon in your filter, you can go ahead and treat the entire 50 gallon for Ich. Carbon will just remove the medication. I recommend QuIck Cure as it has worked for me, and you can dose a large tank for the entire treatment period with just 1 bottle. You will want to raise the temperature to around 82-83 degrees to speed up the life cycle of the Ich parasite. This will allow the Ich to fall off of the host so it can replicate much faster than if you were to keep the temperature at normal levels. The bottle says to treat for 3 days, but it is much better to treat for about a week (maybe more if you want to be safe). You will just have to do a substantial water change every 3 days.

Keep in mind that this medication contains a chemical that will stain your silicone and some decorations blue. It doesn't harm anything, but it can be quite annoying.

If you can provide a really clear picture, I could tell you if it is Ich or not. Most likely is... If it looks like little grains of salt on the fins, that is Ich.

On another note, can you provide the water stats, tank inhabitants, and maintenance schedule? Were any fish added recently? This is critical information that will help us diagnose/fix your problem.

If in the mean time you want to check things out on your own, just google "ich" and you will find a lot of info on it. ;)

Best of luck!
 
well I'll get some fin ich medication BUT theres carbon in my filter! what do I do? And none of my other fish have fin ich. The community tank has 4 pink convict cichlids,1 mollie,4 neon tetras,3 glolight tetras, 2 serpae tetras, 2 chinese algae eaters, 1 zebra danio, 2 scissortail rasbosas, and 1 sick female betta. I only have the ph chemical test kit and it reads 7.2
 
well I'll get some fin ich medication BUT theres carbon in my filter! what do I do? And none of my other fish have fin ich. The community tank has 4 pink convict cichlids,1 mollie,4 neon tetras,3 glolight tetras, 2 serpae tetras, 2 chinese algae eaters, 1 zebra danio, 2 scissortail rasbosas, and 1 sick female betta. I only have the ph chemical test kit and it reads 7.2



ReMz or someone of that experience level will hopefully return to sort out details, but has provided typically brilliant advice.
But as you're evidently not yet familiar with ich, I thought I'd provide some info which might help explain ReMz's recommendations.

The carbon will have to be removed prior to treatment, unless very elderly indeed, as it'll take out the medication.
Ich may not be showing on the other fish yet, but the little critters are almost certainly in the tank.
And they can only be destroyed while in the free-swimming stage, prior to attachment, so far and away best off getting rid of them before they do attach to all your fish, and produce yet more little horrors.




http://www.fishlore.com/aquariummagazine/n...ish-disease.htm

'Ick or ich is one of the most common diseases known in the fish keeping hobby. This is a protozoan parasite that has a three stage life cycle. When they first attach themselves to the fish they are not visible to the naked eye. They become visible after feeding on the body fluids of the fish for a few days and thereafter appear as tiny white spots on the fish. Each white spot is an individual parasite. The spots appear on the tail, fins and body of the fish. This stage of the cycle is the symptom stage and termed trophont.

'During the course of a few days the parasites mature and on completion they break free from the fish's skin layer, falling to the bottom of the aquarium. The parasites can then attach themselves onto any of the items within the aquarium. At this stage the parasites start reproducing. This part of the cycle is called tomont. In twenty four hours each cyst may have up to 500 new parasites. Hundreds of free swimming parasites are let into the water once the cyst breaks open. The time in which it takes at this stage varies, high temperatures increase maturation while colder temperatures will cause a longer latency. The parasites then look for fish to attach themselves onto and it is at this time that treatment should be applied. This stage is known as the "free swimming stage" and it is termed theront. ...'

'... Once the disease is found a partial water change should be made. The most common, perhaps the best and certainly our recommendation for treatment is raising the temperature. Raise the water temperature to 82-86 °F and maintain it for 14-20 days or until there is no sign of the disease. Usually it has been known to clear in about two weeks. This treatment is especially recommended if scale-less fish like plecos , catfish, loaches etc, are present in the aquarium as most medication and salt are dangerous to them and they can be more harmed by it than the disease. Increase partial water changes during the time when the temperature is high as the warmer water has less oxygen. Gravel vacuuming too should be done more often at this time as it will clean out large numbers of cysts that have fallen to the bottom or are dying. ...'

But Quick Cure, as pointed out, is fast, effective and safe for most fish, although catfish, tetras and bettas, (as well as any shrimp in the tank,) tend to be sensitive to meds and should have a lower dose, (generally about half, although ReMz will advise,) for a more extended period.
That, of course, includes your algae eaters, in fact most of your fish, as rasboras are apparently similar to tetras in that regard.

I know we, apparently, can't get Quick Cure in Canada any more, so I hope you'll be able to.


So you see, if you don't treat the tank, they may all suffer from this.
 
bettas usually respond real well to ich treatment, let us know what happens..
 
Thanks for clarifying that for him/her Syphoniera. :)

I would treat normal dosage of QuIck Cure for a betta.... but as said, not the other fish in that tank. They can be very sensitive to the meds (especially ur algae eaters). The problem with just raising the temp is that you are just speeding up the lifecycle of the parasite and they will replicate faster and faster and may get to the fatal stages (in the gills) without something to kill it. With the fish still stressed and their immune system down, it could easily turn into an epidemic. I've heard of an alternative treatment involving keeping the tank covered (so it is pitch black) and raising the temp for 2 weeks (only uncovering to feed of course). The idea behind this is that the parasite cannot find the fish to re-attach to once it has fallen off of the body to reproduce. I would be very skeptical of this working though....

If possible, maybe quarantine the algae eaters....... then treat the main tank. I'm unsure though and I do not know how to cure fish that are extremely sensitive to meds. You should absolutely treat the main tank though to ensure you kill any spores or free-swimming parasites.

Hopefully someone else can chime in on this one, as I simply do not know another method that applies to your situation and do not want to misguide you. I guess you could isolate the betta in hopes that the ich has not spread to the rest of the tank. That would be the first pro-active step. :unsure:

well I'll get some fin ich medication BUT theres carbon in my filter! what do I do? And none of my other fish have fin ich. The community tank has 4 pink convict cichlids,1 mollie,4 neon tetras,3 glolight tetras, 2 serpae tetras, 2 chinese algae eaters, 1 zebra danio, 2 scissortail rasbosas, and 1 sick female betta. I only have the ph chemical test kit and it reads 7.2
yikes :crazy:

This tank is very incompatible. The convicts must be very young, because most of those fish (including the betta) would become a snack. Additionally, depending on what those "Chinese Algae Eaters" really are, they could get very very very large and would not even be suitable for a 100 gallon tank. This could be part of the problem, as the stress levels in the tank may be so high that your betta's immune system dropped. Ich is an opportunistic parasite.

I'm not sure if you are aware, but convicts can be very territorial and just devilish cichlids. None of the other tank mates are large enough or capable of defending themselves. When convicts pair up and mate, they can often do quite a bit of damage to even much larger cichlids (such as oscars). Given that the tank is only 50 gallons, there is not much room in there for fish to hide and be peaceful.

Do you notice a lot of aggression with these tank inhabitants? Also, how long has this tank been set up?

You should get a water test kit immediately to see if there are spikes in the ammonia, nitrite, or nitrate. The PH is not as important as these other parameters.

Try posting your problem over in the tropical fish emergency section. The more opinions you can get the better. :)

edit: as far as the carbon goes... what kind of filter is it? most carbon can be removed very easily.
 
I put the betta in with a mollie that just got well from fin rot. I put some fin rot tablet medication for the mollie a little earlier wondering if that will solve the fin rot AND the ich. And the the bottle of quICK cure medication said not to put it in with snails...I have 40+ snails that keep on reproducing and are pretty small and hard to get out. if I put them in the community tank they will get eaten. and my community tank has tetras in it and the quICK cure medication said to put less for a tetra tank, but i have both tetras and other fish....how will i do that? OK on with your questions now The convict cichlids haven't eaten any fish yet even though they are 1 year old except the time where the 4 inch cichlid ate the really tiny very injured neon tetra that might of had brain damage. The reason why the convicts are in there is the friend that gave them to us said they were kissing gouramis, but after further research i found out they were cichlids. the tank is about a little more than 1 year old. There's only aggression on the cichlids own kind but its mild like chasing each other for like 1 second. happens a lot when foods around. I don't know what type of filter the community tank is but the 10 gal is a 5-15 gal power filter.
 
i'd still treat the community tank and say oh well to the carbon, cause if one fish has it, it WILL BE IN THE TANK somewhere, ive treated a sick fish only to get it healthy again and it falls ill as soon as its back in the main tank,, gee wonder what i did... nope ick bugs can hide in the ornaments, gravel or filter of a tank and its best to treat any tank that an infected fish came in contact with. good luck
 
you're best off to go buy a really small treatment tank with a cheap heater/filter. It's always good to have around when you have the amount of fish that you do.

I understand that you may not want to spend the money on that though. You should however buy a liquid master test kit to check out your stats. that is a very worthy investment and if you can get us some numbers it would help.

The snails will not survive any sort of Ich treatment and the fin rot medication will not cure the Ich. Are you sure they are convicts? I'm not familiar with "pink" convicts in the least... but i do know that it can be hard to ID some cichlids unless you are very well experienced with them.

If you have not replaced your filter media or added any carbon within the last month or so, you can probably treat the tank without the carbon doing anything. Carbon only stays active for a few weeks tops. The power filter media can usually be opened and you can dump the carbon out. If you have an undergravel filter in the community tank, there is no carbon. However, a canister or HOB power filter might....

edit: just did a quick search on pink convicts. they seem easy enough to identify :good:
 
Basically my 10 gal is my "hospital" tank with only two fish in there fin rot mollie and The dearly beloved betta with fin ich. And the "hospital" tank is set with a good heater, thermometer, filter, and and light with 4 fake plants and 1 live plant. and my filter thingy is like 2 weeks old LOL :lol: i guess I can do that! so I should put the betta back in the community tank, take the chinese algae eaters out, and treat it right? wait but as i said in my last post "and my community tank has tetras in it and the quICK cure medication said to put less medication for a tetra tank, but i have both tetras and other fish....how will i do that?" Could That be answered please? I'll try to get the nitrate, nitrite,ammonia etc. chemical tests soon. OH and here are the pictures of the supposedly "pink convict cichlids"



edit:eek:h thanks syphoniera you helped me understand a lot
 
Basically my 10 gal is my "hospital" tank with only two fish in there fin rot mollie and The dearly beloved betta with fin ich. And the "hospital" tank is set with a good heater, thermometer, filter, and and light with 4 fake plants and 1 live plant. and my filter thingy is like 2 weeks old LOL :lol: i guess I can do that! so I should put the betta back in the community tank, take the chinese algae eaters out, and treat it right? wait but as i said in my last post "and my community tank has tetras in it and the quICK cure medication said to put less medication for a tetra tank, but i have both tetras and other fish....how will i do that?" Could That be answered please? I'll try to get the nitrate, nitrite,ammonia etc. chemical tests soon. OH and here are the pictures of the supposedly "pink convict cichlids"



edit:eek:h thanks syphoniera you helped me understand a lot
I'm getting the idea that you are taking offense to what i said.

What i meant by a treatment tank was a tank that was empty of any substrate, plants, or snails. Purely a treatment tank. So don't try that sly sort of "I know what i'm doing response". I dont appreciate it. :)

Those are 'pink convicts' as far as im concerned. but what do i know. good luck with your treatment ;)

edit: go ahead and treat for the tetra dosage (1 drop per 2 gallons)
 

Most reactions

Back
Top