help joey plz.....

fishmom

well i have never had a fish go thru what joeys going through right now.
he barely swims,dosent eat....this has been going on almost 2 weeks ..and he hides seems like the light bothers him....this morning i saw that he had a ball of film on his tail ..not ick this was a circular ball of film around his tail ...so i dosed him good with fungus med....and put medi boost in too.... later when i checked on him again the film and the portion of tail that it had been on was entirely off... anyone able to tell me whats going on with this guy......i do have a good bit of meds so if i should be giving something else pls let me know....hopefully itll be one i already have......i do partial changes 1x a week its a 5 gal.... but when he acted weird i changed his water he seemed better for a day or 2 then he went back to being sick and has been going down hill ever since.. joeys my betta and ive had him now for almost 8 months with no prior problems at all.....thx in advance for your help.....

willow

hi
would you be able to let members know
what filter you are running,what Amonia,nitrIte,nitrAte
levels are,what the maintainance of his tank is,
they may be able to suggest somethings for you.
:)

fishmom

willow.... i have a 5 gal tank it has a red sea nano filter on it.....
i change 50% every week....once a month i do like a 75% change. here are the test results....ph is right at 7
nitrate are 0
nitrites are .5
kh is around 80
water quality is soft
i have ammonia monitors on and its reading is at the safe level.. so i think i have everything .... anyone have ideas...as to what could be joeys problem? and i added a dose of salt in there as well....i am currently treating him with jungles fungus med....so far no results really.......

Falina

Have you recently done teh 75% change? This is a bit much to change, not so much because of the water itself, but because it can cause a slight shift in params which can be a bit stressful on the fish. Also doing this amount of water change could lead to the filter drying out a bit which would kill off some of the beneficial bateria.

You have some nitrites, which means that amonia has recently been present if it's not present now. What test are you using for amonia? You say it reads a safe level. The only safe level of amonia is 0 as amonia is the most toxic of these 3 params to fish. Any reading at all needs to be dilluted back down to 0.

Sometimes medications can kill off the beneficial bacteria. I'd recommend not dosing any medications until you're more certain what's wrong with him and always make sure one med has been removed before dosing another. Carbon in your filter will remove any medds present if you find you need to do this.

HTH

fishmom

thanks but...not quite the answer i was hoping for first my nitrates and nitrites are 0 but for the one test i put the higher answer because it was hard to tell which one it really is.....havent dont a big change of water i was gonna but with him not feeling well i have been putting it off...... i took the carbon out of the filter that way it dosent get all the medicine out right away.... i just need to know whats wrong with him so i can treat him with the right meds..oh and for the ammonia i have a monitor so when i say safe level it means there is no ammonia for instance if it had a small amount of ammonia it would turn green..and if it had a high level of ammonia it would be blue.. but it is reading yellow which means no ammonia present....

JouteiMike

Those cheap ammonia monitoring units are as reliable as test strips, cause it's the same principle. I suggest you pick up a liquid test kit for more accurate results.

As Falina suggested...you are changing far too much of the water. Try 10-25% each week instead...and leave it at that. In my opinion, large water changes causes strain on your biological filtration, because you really don't need to be doing large water changes, since your bioload is very low. Also they could cause pH swings, and just overall water chemistry swing which stresses your fish out. Let your system have some time to build up some nitrates (by doing much smaller volumed water changes), so the nitrigying bacteria can properly develop.

Not really enough information to properly diagnose the problem.

bettababy

After reading all of the posts in this thread, I'd say I have to agree with what the others have said thus far. With regard to water changes, if you decrease the amount you change each time, simply do it twice/wk instead of once/wk and you'll have much better water quality overall.

I did notice a couple of other possible issues... for starters, the filter... does your fish hide behind it, under it, or close to the intake at all? An easy mistake that many people have made is to use a filter on a betta tank not realizing that most filters will stress a betta severely. Bettas need a very slow moving or still environment. This stress will usually cause the symptoms you described about the hiding, the not eating, etc. Stress can do amazing things to anyone or anything, in particular a fish.

Another issue I noticed was an obvious fungal or bacterial infection. Without being able to see the fish in at least a photo, I can't ID it exactly, but I can suggest a medication for you that should help kick the illness problem. This might seem a bit complicated, but most bettas will respond to this treatment. Do you have Methylene Blue in your meds collection? Most meds are either very ineffective with the bettas, or toxic... so be careful not to experiment with all the different types out there. Betta fish are super sensitive to meds and most of the fungal and bacterial issues they usually come up with are immune to most of the standard meds out there. The methylene blue is one of the very few I've found that actually works and seems to work quickly if you keep the water changes up and follow the dosing instructions. With the betta in a 5 gallon tank, if this were mine, I would unplug that filter, for starters. This will help to determine if the stress of the filter is causing some of the problems. Dose the tank with the methylene blue, then for the next day, use a bucket of water to do your water change, about 1 gallon... and dose the water in the bucket with the methylene blue (according to dosing instructions). Each day do a 1 gallon water change with treated water, continue this for 5 - 6 days.
If you notice after you unplug the filter that the fish's behavior changes back to something more "normal", then you know the filter is simply too strong and you can downgrade to something smaller and less powerful, or you can choose my route... I use no filter on my betta tanks and/or bowls. I simply do water changes every other day which keeps things plenty clean enough for the 1 fish without the need of a filter.

Oh... and keep him warm!! 80 - 83 degrees will help him get well much faster. Make sure his temp doesn't drop below 75. If you don't have a heater in the tank, I would highly suggest getting one in there asap!

I hope this helps, let me know if there's anything else I can do for you and your little Joey. Good Luck to you both!

bettababy

I'm sorry it took me so long to get back here, but I have some medications for you that should help provided the fish is still eating.

The first one is called Piprizine. You would want to coat the food in it, and feed the medicated food to the fish. It is very likely that your fish has a tape worm, and this is the only way that I know of at present to safely treat it with a betta. I participated in removing one once, a coworker used a tweezers and actually pulled the worm out. I don't advise anyone try this, it's very delicate surgery, and if anything goes wrong the result is a dead fish.

The other possibility here is an internal bacterial infection, and the only safe thing I can find to treat that would be a medication called Prazi Pro. Treat the water as directed on the bottle, and you can do this while feeding the medicated food, safely.

If you need help in finding these medications online, let me know. Please keep me posted on the progress... and good luck to you both!!!

fishmom

hi thanks for the help .....as far him not likeing the filter hes had one for 8 months and it never bothered him it has a very gentle output....... and the fungus med i gave him seems to have done the trick...he is eating like he never saw food before....well altogether its been about 3 weeks where i thought he was a goner ....but these last few days hes really been eating good ...and swimming around some ...still not swimming around as much but at least he interacts with us again..like before he hated lights and hid in his house all the time....now he swims to us and stuff so hopefully whatever was wrong with him he has beaten it...... oh and i know some people say i do to much of a water change but i had this posted on my other message site as well and they all thought 50 percent changes a week was fine.....i know every body has different options that work for them but i guess ill just keep doijng whats was working for me.... thanks again

Lupin

Depends on your bioload. If it works for you, why let other people get in the way?:) I do plenty more than 50% weekly and my fish like it better than less frequent water changes.