What's up with my betta?

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AfternoonNarwhale

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I noticed lately my betta, Iggy has laying on the bottom of the tank a lot. He still eats and stuff, so I didn't really think about it. My mistake, because when I went to feed him this morning, I noticed some weird white spots on his head and also back. Now I know he lost some scales over a year ago now when he got stuck in a log meant for shrimp and we had to cut the log open so he could get out-definitely left him with some scales gone. But these definitely weren't looking like this a couple weeks ago. When I googled it it came up with ich-but it doesn't look like that to me? I was hoping someone would know what this is?

It's a little hard to see in pictures but it's on his head.
 

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I noticed lately my betta, Iggy has laying on the bottom of the tank a lot. He still eats and stuff, so I didn't really think about it. My mistake, because when I went to feed him this morning, I noticed some weird white spots on his head and also back. Now I know he lost some scales over a year ago now when he got stuck in a log meant for shrimp and we had to cut the log open so he could get out-definitely left him with some scales gone. But these definitely weren't looking like this a couple weeks ago. When I googled it it came up with ich-but it doesn't look like that to me? I was hoping someone would know what this is?

It's a little hard to see in pictures but it's on his head.
search up fungal infection, @Colin_T may help
 
It's not ich (white spot).

It looks like excess mucous.

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Test the water quality for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and pH.

Put a sponge over the filter intake so the fish doesn't get stuck to it.

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.
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 to maximise the oxygen levels in the water.

If there's no improvement after a few water changes, add some salt.

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SALT
You can add rock salt (often sold as aquarium salt), sea 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.

If 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.
 

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