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Until recently I had successfully kept a male betta in my 55 gallon tank. He was comical to watch and actually went against all about what I read about having bettas in a community tank. He didn't hang out at the top instead he hung out at the bottom chasing the clown loaches around and making home underneath one of the lace rocks. It was pretty successful for about a month, but within the last few days his fins have gotten really torn up and hung out on top of the powerhead instead of at the bottom of the tank .It's weird because I never once saw a fish nip at him and even when he flared and chased the loaches the never paid him any mind and just swam off. I have since removed him from the community tank and placed him in a more typical betta vase.

My question is this: What should I do to help him heal up? Right now the water he is in is just tank water so there wasn't a drastic change, but I haven't treated for anything else. Should I add melafix, stress coat or something else ? I'm sad to see him in a vase now that I've seen him flourish for a bit in a large planted tank. But something was going on that I didn't see and he's in sad shape so I'd like to try and speed his recovery. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Melafix is always a great choice for healing ripped fins. Just make sure he gets plenty to eat and good food. Maybe even some freezedried bloodworms. Also, i am not sure if he was really happy in the community tank. Bettas usually stay near the top because they are labyrinth fish and breathe air, so he might have been to scared to come up. I am sure he will be happier where he is now.

Melafix will help more than stress coat. Personally I never use stress coat due to a bad experience with it once....

If he's in a betta vase it's likely less than a gallon of water, I'd suggest daily water changes on that. If you're using tank water from the 55 make sure the nitrAtes are low (10ppm or lower) otherwise with the torn fins I'd worry about bacterial infections setting in. The melafix should help prevent any further issues, and may help speed the healing. If you're noticing any sort of fungus or finrot you'll want to use a real medication instead of melafix.
Look into getting him a 10 gallon tank that you can plant and he can be himself again.

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I agree with Hooktor on this one Melafix is an great remedy for fin rot. Just wanted to point out something that was brought to my attention from another FP member a while back. Melafix directions say to treat every day for 7 straight days. However I have found it to be much more effective to treat on the odd number days (1,3,5,& 7) then do your water change. The reason for this is because in high doses Melafix can actually be toxic to your fish, especially in a bowl. This method doen't let the Melafix rise to toxic levels. Good Luck!

Melafix is made of tea tree oil...which has healing properties... it does not have any medication to cure bacterial or fungal finrot. Here are some links for finrot

http://www.bettatalk.com/betta_diseases.htm

also

http://www.healthybetta.com

under illness.



Last edited by Light_Bright at 09-Jun-2005 14:38

Last edited by Light_Bright at 09-Jun-2005 14:38

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Thanks for everyone's help, you pretty much just confirmed what I figured. I just picked up some new discus so my fish "fun money" is spent for a little bit that's why he ended up in a vase, but it's a good size vase, probably atleast a gallon. But that won't be his permanent home it was just the first thing that I found when I realized the problem. The nitrates are fine (right now) because I have to be very careful of that for my discus I added a small amount of melafix and will probably do a small water change tomorrow morning (or tonight if I have time).

Yeah and that's what I was thinking about the Stress Coat. I think the knowledge about that type of product is very poor. I've been dealing with fish for almost two years and I figured Stress Coat was the fix all safe product. Every water change it gets rid of your chlorine and helps the fish. So I used it pretty liberally thinking it was safe. But the last time I had a problem with a fish and talked to someone at a lfs when she found out I used Stress Coat her eyes got big and just said "Don't Use That!". They don't even sell the stuff. So now I know the error of my ways and just use DeChlor during water changes.