Am I getting it right? My female betta is sick.?

Question

I've done some extensive research and still need some help. I'll start with the overall situation.
I usually keep each of my bettas in at least a 1 gallon container with plenty of planty hiding places, I use some live and some fake. I do frequent waterchanges and about once a month I remove the fish and wash all the plants and glass pebbles to prevent harmful bacteria and waste build up.
The temperature never does anything extreme and My bettas have always been active enough. Before 2 weeks ago I had never in 5 years of bettas, had to deal with a sick fish.
I'm pretty sure my Female has a fungus in her gills, after treatments and warmer water the white fuzzy spots near her eyes dissapeard and the fuzz I saw emerging from her gills is almost unnoticable. her "breathing" is very labored and she's become lathargic and will not eat. And the reall challenge here is that she's also FAT with eggs. I think her stress from a spawn attempt caused the outbreak, the male had it too and is fine.

Should I add some salt? Epsom? Sea salt?

She's a little more active today but there a lot of leaning at the bottom until she needs air and also lots of resting on the plants near the surface for a quicker swim. Her scales are sort of sticking out, giving her a more scaggly look, is this cause she's so pregnant? I'm treating with bettafix remedy and it's doing such a good job right now. I've been doing the treatments for about 5 days now and she's shown much improvement, but still no eating and still very labored breathing.

She is isolated in a smaller tank right now so I can keep it a little warmer with my desk lamp, she seems to like the warmest part of the water best. please help.

Answer 1

You have a very sick fish on your hands. The white fuzzy stuff could be a fungus or possibly a bacterial infection such as columnaris. The bettafix will help with a fungus, not not so much with an infection. Yes, some but it's not a very powerful antibiotic. Both of these are fairly easy to treat and if you see it receeding you are winning the fight against that and I would suggest you continue what you are doing for that problem.

The scales that are poking out is the real concern here. That is a condition known as dropsy which is really a symptom of a disease. It indicated there is fluid collecting in the fishes body cavity. This can be from several different causes but the most common is a liver infection.

Internal infections are quite difficult to sucessfully treat. If my suspicions are correct, you are probably dealing with a columnaris infection that has also infected the fish internally and become systemic. The best antibiotic readily available for this problem is Furanace. It absorbs internally better than some other antibiotics on the market and has a good track record for various internal infections and is one of very few that has been shown to treat systemic columnaris.

Personally I would recommend a treatment with Furanace for 14 days, however that will be expensive and have a rather low chance of success to be totally honest with you.

Best of luck with her.

MM

Answer 2

It sounds like your lil fish has ich. I had a beta that lived for 3 years and that they are super pets, very hardy. I used to artwork at a puppy save a loooong time in the past, and that i could provide you all of the suggestion, yet i chanced in this internet site as a replace that provides you with some recommendations on the thank you to handle the fish greater efficient than i'd desire to be conscious it! good success i'm hoping he gets greater efficient. edit: betta's do no longer "choose" a heated tank in any respect, as i'm valuable you're already conscious. somewhat fish bowl is wonderful as long because of the fact the water is taken care of top. it fairly is an outstanding concept, yet this sounds like it fairly is someone-friendly puppy for you and you do no longer prefer to sink a ton of money into it. don't sense obligated to waste money on something that's no longer a necessity. (in case you have it, by potential of all potential, choose for it.) 2nd edit: however a Betta can stay to tell the tale in super areas, it maximum fairly prefers smaller areas, which makes the small bowls oftentimes offered for them perfect. betta's are very territorial, and in nature are recent in small, shallow factors of water. A smaller portion of area will make the Betta sense for sure greater maintain as that's going to think of it could guard its territory greater basic.