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First, I couldn't decide if I should post this here or in the hospital forum, so feel free to move as needed.
Anyways, we have had a betta for 3 or 4 months now. When we got him, his tail was very short. We started dosing him with melafix daily and it started to improve, but whenever we stopped the meds, it was shrink again. When we came back from a week long vacation, his tail was as short as it was when we first got him.
What can we do to stop this permanently?
He is in a 5.5 gallon that gets weekly water changes.
TIA
Jen

what sort of tail does he have?

first thing to figure out is if it is rotting or if he is chewing it off.

if the melafix isn't working, try a good kick of something stronger (just the once) to see if you can throw it off that way. maybe BettaMax? or Melafix & Pimafix at one?

For animals, the entire universe has been neatly divided into things to (a) mate with, (b) eat, (c) run away from, and (d) rocks. - Terry Pratchett

I don't really know what kind of tail he has (don't know much about bettas). Sorry. I don't think that he's eating it off, at least, I've never seen him do that. What would cause a betta to nibble off his tail? I will try the melafix/pimafix dosage for a bit and see if that works and if not, I'll try your other suggestions. Thanks!

It's called fin rot, and just keep applying medicine.

www.bettatalk.com

I'm not familiar with the kind of medicine your using, but any good antibiotic should work.

No not any good antibiotic will work!!!! First you have to find out if it is finrot or as Calla mentioned..tail biting. Are there any other symptoms?

Okay, so if you decide it is finrot..finrot can a fungal infection or bacteria. The best thing I have found for fungal (a slower acting finrot) is Jungles fungal eliminator which you can get in walmart.

Bacterial finrot is faster acting, I have seen it take a fish in one week. I like Maracyn or Kanacyn for bacterial.

Another site besides Bettatalk to look for more disease info is [link=http://www.healthybetta.com]http://www.healthybetta.com" style="COLOR: #400040[/link]

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If at first you DO succeed, try not to look astonished.

when my betta got fin rot, he also had ick so i dosed him with quick cure, and mela fix, hes 99.9% better now and back in his tank now