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'I've been Betta' - When Your Betta Gets Sick By: BettySplendens Submitted: 9/16/2003 Ich Magnification of Amloodinium Ocellatum (Velvet disease) As with all aquarium fish, sometimes bettas get ill. It is important to be familiar with your fish, so that any unusual behavior can be detected early. Bettas are basically sedentary fish, so inactivity alone is not enough to diagnose your betta as 'sick', although sudden inactivity in an otherwise healthy and active betta can be suspect. Your betta could be sick, or just feeling blue. Behavior that should trigger an immediate red flag is clamping of the fins, lying on the side (although some bettas actually like sleeping this way), panting, clouded eyes, swollen gills, paleness of color, bouncing and rubbing on the sides of the tank/bowl, spots, dusting, or 'strings' on the body, and sudden lack of appetite. Betta diseases can usually be broken down into three categories: Parasitic, Bacterial, and Fungal. Here are the most common: PARASITIC Ich: Short for Ichthyophthirius multifiliis, also known as 'White Spot Disease', the most common behavior associated with this highly contagious disease is clamped fins with intermittent darting around the tank and brushing against objects as the fish attempts to rid itself of the parasite. The protozoa spends a phase of its life living within the skin of the fish and living on the tissue. The white cyst that encapsulates them gives the fish the tell-tale white spots on fins and body. These parasites are commonly found in healthy aquariums, and fish are generally immune to them unless poor water conditions, extremes in water temperature, or very cold water weakens the immune system and gives Ich an open door to wreak havoc. After infecting the fish, the adult organism falls off into the gravel and becomes encysted in a free-living dormant stage that is unresponsive to medication. In a few hours to days, the parasite divides into 200 - 800 larvae, which then go in search of a host. The best way to treat Ich is to turn the water temperature up to 85 degrees (to speed the life cycle) and treat with a medication containing malachite green or copper, such as Quick Cure or Coppersafe. Ignore the dosage on the label (are these people serious?) that recommends treatments 2 - 3 days 'until ich is gone'...you need to treat for the entire lifecycle of the parasite, or else do complete water changes every 2 days. Fish must be treated for at least a week, or you run the risk of reinfection. If treating an aquarium, first remove the carbon from the filter, and remove any live plants and fish such as Tetras and Scaleless Catfish, which need to be treated separately as they require a half-dosage. Velvet - Also known as Oodinium, a fish infected with Velvet will often display clamped fins, rapid breathing, and small spots or a 'dusting' over fins and body. Like Ich, the fish will sometimes dart around trying to scratch itself. Velvet usually only arises when poor aquarium conditions prevail, and fry are particularly vulnerable to infection. The parasite is extremely deadly, but most cases respond to treatment. A copper-based medication like Maracide can make quick work of Velvet while the parasite is in its free-swimming stage. Raising the temperature to 82 - 84 degrees, dimming the light, and giving the sick fish a 3% salt bath can also be effective. Internal Parasites - This can be a tough one to catch! Sometimes a fish will show little or no sign of sickness, but will gradually get thinner. You have to really know your bettas to even see this one coming, folks. As always, prevention is the best medicine. Rinse live and frozen food thoroughly with clean water, and do not pass bowls, nets, or other equipment between healthy fish and sick ones. If you suspect IP, put your betta into clean water and treat immediately with a parasitic medication (I like Clout, Maracyn-2, or Hex-a-Mit). Clean containers well that have been holding infected fish; scald with boiling water or clean with Clorox. Flukes - Usually the gills are infected. A pretty obvious one to spot, since the gills become inflamed, red, swollen, and may even fungus or bleed. The fish looks and acts miserable, often clamping his fins and panting. He will also probably try to bash himself against anything he can - plants, rocks, sides of tank, other fish, etc - to rid himself of the flukes. In some disgusting cases you can actually SEE the little buggers hanging from the fish, like long threads. You need to treat him with a good creepy-getter medication like Coppersafe, Formalin 3, or Permoxyn, and raise the temperature to 82 - 84 degrees. FUNGAL Cottonmouth - Exactly what it sounds like, it looks like your fish has cotton growing out of its mouth and around its face. Sudden changes in temperature, poor water quality, and severe shock are contributing factors to this disease, and it can knock a betta out fast if untreated. Fungus Eliminator (by Jungle) and MarOxy should take care of it. Put your betta in clean water during treatment, and please always make sure his water conditions are good when he recovers. Fin & Tail Rot - Fish has holes, tears, or lesions in the fins, and the disease will eat the fins completely away in a matter of days if left untreated! Fungal finrot is extremely fast-acting, so treat immediately with any of the fungal medications available at your local pet store. Popeye - One eye or both will protrude, or will appear cloudy. Rough handling can cause Popeye (as well as a host of other things), so always handle the betta gently. Extreme temperature changes, dirty water, and over-aerating have also been named culprits. Treat him with Melafix, Maracyn-2, Ampicillix, or Penicillin. White Slime Disorder - Stringy, white mucus on the body, highly contagious. Treat the fish with an antifungal, treat fish he has had contact with, and scrub, scrub, scrub the tank or bowl with bleach. If he's been in a community aquarium, I'm sorry, but you're going to have to dismantle the entire thing, sterilize it, and recycle it before putting the fish back in. Yes, it is THAT bad. BACTERIAL Bacterial Fin Rot - Usually starts with a hole or tear in the betta's fins (often as a result of a spawning injury), and then bacteria sets in. This can be a stubborn form of fin rot, and the betta will be prone to relapses, even after treatment. If I have a fish that contracts bacterial fin rot, I know he is going to need special treatment for the rest of his life. First he's put on an antibiotic regimen (I use Maracyn-2 or Tetracycline) for five days, changing the water every day. Then I give him 2 more days, and if he isn't improving, the antiobiotic treatment is repeated, ONCE. After that, if he hasn't improved, we move on to Penicillin. If I do finally manage to stop this horrible affliction, the betta gets a 100% water change, every single day; his resistence to the disease is now low, and chances of reinfection are high. OTHER PROBLEMS Dropsy - This is one of the most fatal diseases to attack bettas; unfortunately, its also one of the most common. The jury is still out on exactly what causes it, and therefore what cures it. There is a belief that it may be a bacterial infection of the kidneys, but nobody really knows for sure. The usual recommended treatment is Tetracycline, but this is so seldom completely effective as to be inconclusive. To further complicate matters, there seems to be several variances of dropsy. The most well-known (and the most horrifying, IMO) is when the abdomen of the fish swells up grotesquely, the scales protrude like a pinecone, and the fish can't seem to get out of the 'belly down' position, with his hind-end raised. The bloating is caused by excess fluid in the body tissues, and is usually evident in all dropsy cases. Sometimes the fish will get only mildly pineconed, and still die of dropsy. I had a female act lethargic, go off her feed, and she wasn't improving...I couldn't figure out what was wrong with her. Then I noticed the belly area was looking slightly swollen and very pale, so I looked at her from above - voila. There was the pineconing. Incidentally, this female died 2 days into treatment, and I didn't even know she was dead until a day or so after that. The fluid caused her to stay in an upright position with her nose to the surface, and if it wasn't for the fact her eyes glazed over she looked for all the world exactly as she had when she first got sick. Another interesting version of dropsy is when the fish looks normal (or may be slightly pale), but is off its feed and not acting 'right'. These will sometimes do the belly-down-tail-up behavior, but will not be swollen, and will not be pineconed. This form of dropsy is the MOST deadly! Within 24 hours the fish is dead, and you don't even get a chance to try to cure it. Lorena Hazama reported that she had success with a rather unorthodox dropsy treatment. Here is what she said (borrowed from Wayne's This and That): 'I'm in no way any kind of expert, but I just wanted to share what I learned from a dropsy episode with my fish with the hopes of perhaps helping someone else someday. When my fish first got it, I didn't have any hope, because I had heard that it was difficult to cure. 'With a lot of help and suggestions from people in this forum, esp. Uptongirl and Violetedawn, as well as some other resources, my fish's case of dropsy has been diminished if not 'cured'. 'Have no idea what caused his kidney function to fail/decrease. I'm guessing it was bacterial or viral because Kanacyn seemed to do the trick. 'Treatment was in stages as I changed things as I found out about stuff. I have no clue what actually helped--or if it was something I should not have done--so I'm putting everything here: 1. Had him in Maracyn II for about a day. 2. When I got Kanacyn, I put that in the water instead (did not use the 2 together). 3. Tried to keep temp as warm as possible--was a bit difficult because we have air conditioning and he's at work. Some sites say they upped the water temp to 86C for gold fish. I think his water was probably around 70-72C. But if you're changing temp, please do it slowly as not to stress or harm your fish. 4. Shielded his tank from stressful light by making a black paper 'box' with some air and peep holes cut out. This really seemed to help. 5. Added some epsom salt to his Kanacyn water. (1 tsp for 5 gallons of water.) 6. I was changing his water every other day--100% change. I also kept the water for changes in the same room as the fish tank so it would be about the same temperature when I changed his water. Notes: The epsom salt helped his swelling. I was so afraid that he'd burst or something he looked so swollen. I'm sure he probably felt more comfortable, too. 'Read medication instructions carefully and follow them to the T. It mentions not combining with other chemicals unless compatible with the medication. 'This is really important! I used only Kanacyn and epsom salt together in untreated tap water but I could get away with this because our tap water is drawn from artesian wells and is not treated with chlorine. So I didn't have to use water conditioners or anything to prep his water. I would not normally do this, but I wasn't sure if the chemicals would combine OK with the medication. 'If you have to treat your water, you might want to get help from someone who's a lot more knowledgable about water conditioning. 'If you're like me and don't have a 10-gallon tank or water vessel to put your medicine in, we came up with the following: '1 capsule of Kanacyn and 2 tsp of epsom salt were mixed in 10 Tbs of water. We then used the ratio of 1 Tbs of concentrate to 1 gallon of water for water changes. We kept the concentrated Kanacyn/epsom mixture covered and in a dark place just in case. This may not be the best way to do this, but it seemed to work OK. 'My fish didn't show improvement until after the epsom salt, so it was about a week from when I noticed the dropsy and started treating it to see results. His recovery sped up more after that. So, even if you don't see results right away, just hang in there and give your fishy time to try and kick whatevers ailing him. 'Like I said before, not an expert, not a breeder. Not even an experienced fish owner--I've taken care of a grand total of 4 betta! But for whatever reason, my fish and I were lucky enough to, with lotsa guidance, to be able to kick this.' I can't personally vouch for this treatment, as I have never tried it, but I plan to, as soon as another dropsy pops up in my fishroom! I will post my own results here on this site, and I really hope Lorena is on to something here. Personally, I have never been able to cure a betta of dropsy. I have read accounts of others who have cured them, but usually they die a month or so later. It's not really certain if the disease is contagious or not. By observing the disease in my own fishroom, I can only conclude that there are a lot of contributing factors. Dropsy seems to be in some part genetic; or, rather, the inclination to contract dropsy is genetic. I often combine unrelated spawns of the same age in growout tanks, and I have had incidences of dropsy outbreaks in these tanks that only affect members of one spawn. I think that if one fish gets it, it can be passed to other fish who are predisposed to catching it. Swim Bladder Disorder (SBD) - The most common assumption is that SBD is caused by overfeeding protein-rich foods like artemia (bbs) during the developmental stage of the fish. Sometimes a 24 hour fast is sufficient for getting the problem to take care of itself, and sometimes the fish just outgrows it. A betta with SBD will either swim around with it's backside dragging like a cripple, or just lie on its side on the bottom of the container. Some of these fish live perfectly happy and healthy lives in spite of their infirmity, but if it is so extreme that the fish can't feed or come up for air without struggling, it may be best to euthanize it. I find that it is a common misconception that bbs causes SBD. The overfeeding of any food can contribute to SBD; fry just seem particularly wont to gorge themselves on bbs. Depression - Bettas are intelligent animals (especially for fish) and are therefore sometimes prone to bouts of depression. New fathers recently separated from their fry will usually appear listless, pale, and may not eat for a few days. Freshly-jarred fry, suddenly isolated from their siblings, may also look piquey. I had two females, sisters, who had been together their whole lives, die within days of each other. The first one jumped out of the tank, and her sister promptly stopped eating and died 2 days later, apparantly from a broken heart. There is not much to do for depression except wait for the fish to snap out of it, which they usually do. For upset fathers, Bettamax will reduce stress and give them beneficial nutrients that their bodies need to see them through. Newly-jarred fry can be put next to the jar of their siblings so that they can still see each other and interact. Bettas suffering from loneliness will often perk up if provided with a mirror or a view of another betta. Disappearance - Laugh if you will, but I have had enough incidences of betta disappearances that it now warrants its own section. Obviously the great majority of disappearing bettas are due to jumping from their containers. They are hard to find once they have dried out and shriveled up, and it seems that every Jumper magically finds a way to wedge itself up against the nearest chair leg or into the crack of a floor, craftily hidden. However. I have had jars with lids screwed on tight turn up the next morning missing their betta. A friend of mine once told the story of a betta she found dead in its jar. Pregnant at the time and easily nauseated, she left the dead betta and ran to the bathroom. She didn't have the willpower to face the corpse again until the next day, and when she mustered up the courage and went to get the dead betta for its Last Great Adventure down the commode...it was GONE. It does happen, of this I am fully convinced. Unfortunately, there isn't much I can say to help you if you have a Disappearing Betta. Maybe he was called back to his home planet to report on the goings-on of Earth. Maybe he was a victim of Spontaneous Betta Combustion. Who knows? Just promise me this - if any of you have a betta go missing and then REAPPEAR in his jar, email me immediately!

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Stock shop update COMPLETE.. Sorry for the delay everyone. We've recently found out that the old man and I are expecting a baby, and while that is very exciting, it is also very tiring nauseating terrifying unexpected, considering my medical history. Doc has instructed me to rest up and try not to get stressed, so I'll be taking some time away from work and probably reducing the betta operation a bit.

Most available stock is now posted, although I may have one or two stragglers over the coming week. Next stock shop update probably won't be for a couple of weeks at least. Thanks so much for the outpouring of love, support, and good wishes. I feel so lucky to count so many friends within this hobby :).

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