I have a male half moon plakat elephant ear called shadow and he had dropsy about 2 to 3 weeks ago and has fully recovered and last night I noticed his scales are either missing or changing colour and I do not know what is happening with him. He is behaving as usual and still eating. When he had dropsy I used melafix for a week aswell as 2 epsom salt baths a day as I was waiting for all general cure to arrive to get rid of parasites as his poo was white... could anyone help me with this? I will try to add pictures
What is wrong with my boy?
- Thread starter StephLane
- Start date
Hi and welcome to the forum 
The fish is losing scales either from a bacterial or protozoan infection. There does not appear to be any fungal infection.
Make sure the water quality is good, ie: ammonia 0, nitrite 0, and nitrate less than 20ppm.
Have you got a filter on the tank?
Do a 75% water change and complete gravel clean each day for a couple of days and see if it helps. If scales continue to fall off after 2 big water changes, then treat with a broad spectrum medication that treats fish for protozoans and bacteria. Do not use anti-biotics.
To work out the volume of water in the tank:
measure length x width x height in cm.
divide by 1000.
= volume in litres.
When you measure the height, measure from the top of the substrate to the top of the water level.
There is a calculator/ converter in the "How To Tips" at the top of this page that will let you convert litres to gallons.
Remove carbon from the filter before treating or it will absorb the medication and stop it working.
Wipe the inside of the glass down, do a 75% water change and complete gravel clean. And clean the filter before treating.
The fish is losing scales either from a bacterial or protozoan infection. There does not appear to be any fungal infection.
Make sure the water quality is good, ie: ammonia 0, nitrite 0, and nitrate less than 20ppm.
Have you got a filter on the tank?
Do a 75% water change and complete gravel clean each day for a couple of days and see if it helps. If scales continue to fall off after 2 big water changes, then treat with a broad spectrum medication that treats fish for protozoans and bacteria. Do not use anti-biotics.
To work out the volume of water in the tank:
measure length x width x height in cm.
divide by 1000.
= volume in litres.
When you measure the height, measure from the top of the substrate to the top of the water level.
There is a calculator/ converter in the "How To Tips" at the top of this page that will let you convert litres to gallons.
Remove carbon from the filter before treating or it will absorb the medication and stop it working.
Wipe the inside of the glass down, do a 75% water change and complete gravel clean. And clean the filter before treating.
Medication could cause scales to fall out but it would have to be overdosed or poison the fish. However, you did use Melafix and there have been reports of that damaging Bettas.
Moving the fish out of a medicated tank into a clean tank with similar water chemistry would not cause scales to fall off.
API General Cure will not treat external protozoan infections but will treat intestinal protozoan infections and tapeworm. If he is eating then he does not have an internal protozoan infection.
I would give him a week in the clean tank with no medications and if no more scales fall off, or the area that is missing scales does not go white and fluffy or red and inflamed, then just leave him be and let him recover. But if more scales fall off then look for a medication that treats whitespot and that will treat all external protozoan infections.
You could also increase the temperature to 30C (86F) for 2 weeks. That will kill external protozoans and you won't need to use any medications. It would be safer for the Betta especially if he has been affected by the other medications used on him.
If you do raise the temperature, increase aeration/ surface turbulence to maximise the oxygen levels in the water.
You can photograph him each day and compare the patches without scales and see if anymore have fallen out.
How long have you had him for and how long has his tank been set up for?
Moving the fish out of a medicated tank into a clean tank with similar water chemistry would not cause scales to fall off.
API General Cure will not treat external protozoan infections but will treat intestinal protozoan infections and tapeworm. If he is eating then he does not have an internal protozoan infection.
I would give him a week in the clean tank with no medications and if no more scales fall off, or the area that is missing scales does not go white and fluffy or red and inflamed, then just leave him be and let him recover. But if more scales fall off then look for a medication that treats whitespot and that will treat all external protozoan infections.
You could also increase the temperature to 30C (86F) for 2 weeks. That will kill external protozoans and you won't need to use any medications. It would be safer for the Betta especially if he has been affected by the other medications used on him.
If you do raise the temperature, increase aeration/ surface turbulence to maximise the oxygen levels in the water.
You can photograph him each day and compare the patches without scales and see if anymore have fallen out.
How long have you had him for and how long has his tank been set up for?
I have had him for about 4 weeks now and his tank has been cycled for about two weeks I used fluval cycle beneficial bacteria and I tested the water before I put him in because I didn't want to hurt him. I looked at him this morning and the spots where the scales came off have gotten darker does that mean he is healing up?
What have the ammonia and nitrite tests been like since you got the fish? A few years ago at least, Fluval Cycle rarely worked though they could have improved it since then.
But what have ammonia and nitrite been after you added the betta. Have you been checking them regularly since you got him?
I have tested the ammonia reads 0-0.25 it's slightly green but more yellow, nitrite are 0 and nitrate is 5-10. My tap waters nitrates are 10 so unless there is something I can put in the water for that I can't do anything about it
It sounds like new scales growing thru but monitor him and keep us informed if it changes and looks weird.
Below are a couple of links to threads about Pozzani filters that remove nitrates from tap water.
http://www.fishforums.net/threads/t...s-using-a-pozzani-filter.448001/#post-3787279
http://www.fishforums.net/threads/nitrates-again.448199/#post-3789627
http://www.fishforums.net/threads/pozzani-filter-update-and-more-qs.448815/
If you buy 1 Water Sprite plant (Ceratopteris thalictroides/ cornuta), or a small handful of duckweed, they both grow rapidly and within a few weeks you will have a heap of floating plants that can use the nitrates. Water Sprite can also be planted in the gravel
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