Urgent Care :: anyone know anything about bettas?

[rsour24]

so my gf has a betta and its just not acting right, its fins seem hard and clumped and she says he is getting white on his face, he also is not very active and seems to have lost his appetite, whats wrong? is there any chemical solution i can buy to help and make him better? she is really upset...

[Ranger The Red Ear Slider]

Im not a betta expert but it might be the water that he is in. Do you guys have hard water?

[choob99]

change the water and add a few drops of methylane blue. Its a great broad spectrum treatment but just a few drops will do, its very potent and harmful if too much is used! Betta's are very hardy and with constant water changes they can bounce back quickly.

[Ranger The Red Ear Slider]

I have seen pet stores sell betta water. I don't know whats special about it other then it probally being purfied

[vear]

Check out this forum, they've helped me tons: http://www.fishforums.net/index.php?/fo ... splendens/

Do you have a filter? have you checked your water stats? Could be ich, or a fungus... take a look at the forum.

[chelonian]

What kind of tank is he in?

A lot of folks buy those little bitty tanks sold in a betta section of the petstore and due to the very small volume of still water, many of these fish will develop either a fungus infection or fin rot (which can be fungal or bacterial). That's why the stores will usually add methylene blue to the containers they're kept in before they're sold as a general preventative against fungus infections. (Notice how the water is typically blue in those little containers?)

I believe the key to preventing such infections, aside from maintaining good water quality, is to increase the amount of water circulation so that the water is moving and not standing still. A simple way to do this is to add a couple of airstones. Ideally, you would keep it in a regular fish tank with a filter of some sort that creates current and circulates the water.

In the mean time, I would go to the petstore and see what kind of anti-fungal medications they carry.

[rsour24]

the betta was in a 29 gallon tank, the betta is now under the treatment of melafix in a 2.5 gallon tank and is alrdy showing signs of improvement