Crowntail betta with fin rot

I've posted before about my new pet, which is a crowntail betta. when I got him he had a mild case of fin rot; I'd read up on it and had initially tried changing his water every day to treat it, but it started to slowly get worse. I then tried triple sulfa as it was recommended on a number of sites; for a while it seemed as though his fins didn't get worse and didnt get better, but now his tail is definitely getting worse. Note: it is mostly only his upper tail that has been affected, and his pectoral fins also have dark spots on them.

Two days ago I bought tetracycline and melafix, to try something else for him, and as I already mentioned I had already been trying triple sulfa. So my ammunition is aquarium salt, triple sulfa, tetracycline and melafix. My question is, what is the best method of treatment? I was thinking of alternating the treatments, as I've shown below

Day 1: Tetracycline + Melafix
Day 3: Triple sulfa
Day 6: Tetracycline + Melafix
Day 9: Triple Sulfa


etc and keep alternating. I shall assume that fish bacterial diseases can become resistant to antibiotics, so I figured that by alternating these treatments I can get all of them. Also would it be best to make sure there is always 1tsp/gallon of water in with him at all times?

just as a note, between these meds i'd be changing and thoroughly cleaning the tank out each time to remove each med.

Another issue I've had is with the triple sulfa; I can never get it to dissolve properly, the water is more like a suspension than a solution. is this normal?

Additional information;
- He's kept in a 2.6gallon, unfiltered tank (I do not want to get him a filter, as he HATES, and I mean absolutely HATES any current)

- He has a smooth-leafed aquarium plant (plastic, though a silk one is on its way)

- He has gravel on the bottom of the tank

- He has a cave which he can fit in quite comfortably to hide in (he loves this)

- He's very active, always swims over to you, follows you, takes food from your finger

- at the moment he's getting 25% water changes a day, and the entire tank is cleaned out every few days, to try and keep the water as clean as possible


I apologize for the exceedingly long post, but I love this boy and I'd really like to see him in full health. I've posted some pictures below;

his tank


his fins; as you can see only the top part of his tail is really affected (sorry, not the greatest pictures; I can never get him to flare!) and I know, he's still got a big belly; was like that when I got him, he's been getting fed 1 small piece of food a day at the moment

another thing y can try is somthing called cycle (nutrifin )it helps when y get a new fish and puts good stuff into your water and helps the fish not get sick i put it in my aqurium to help the plants grow it wont harm your fighting fish as i have 10 fighting fish with it in there water y can mix it with other medicine it wont hurt to mix all your medicines together also put the finrot stuff in to if you have medi in there dont change the water to much as y wont get the benifit of the medicine to work if y take it out .make sure y have a pinch of aqurium salt as well that helps to keep them healthy to much water change can stress them out and make them more sick as they like a constant temp your waters way clean 4 drops of cycle in that size is anof 20 percent water change once a week or longer is fine keep the medicine in the water top up medi when you do a water change people think having the water really clean is going to keep your fish healthy but for fighting fish its usally the water temp try keeping the tank in a warm spot i keep mine on the top of my fridge it keeps warm from the motor of the fridge this is my experience hope this helps

i honestly dont see anything majorly wrong. first thing you should do (and so many dont) in this and any situation when a fish looks sick is get the water tested! what is the pH and the ammonia levels? if the water is acidic or the ammonia level are up it will burn the fish and can often give the appearance of fin rot. with no filter you would have little to no bacteria in the tank to break down any ammonia. what are you methods from start to finish when it comes to maintainance? serioulsy 99% of problems with fish tanks and fish alike are results of minor but catastrophic mistakes during cleaning. if you dont want a filter id throw in a purigen pouch, you could hide it under an ornament and it would draw out any nitrogenous waste from the water.
the way mias said to maintain is more or less correct, just make sure you TREAT THE NEW WATER BEFORE IT GOES INTO THE TANK to remove the chlorine, this is more important then most realise! if you add chlorine, you kill the good bacteria (cycle as mentioned by mias) and your water goes bad.
temp as said can be a bit of an issue, they are after all a tropical fish.

also if you got him with fin rot you should have exchanged him at the shop, they would have to have some sought of health garentee?

good luck

do not clean all the water out. imagine your his tank as a mini eco-system it had microbacteria breaking down waste turning it into less toxic by-products that take way longer to build up. taking out all the water kills the colony, adding synthetic bacteric such as cycle is only meant to be a kick start for the colony not its stable. on a further less publicised note all those synethic bacterias are designed to be put in a week before adding the fish so double the dose if the fish is going sraight in. doing all those water changes is most likely sending the amonia and nitrite levels crazy (these are the biggest killer of fish) ideally you should only be changing 1/3 of the water ONCE a week. bad water cemistry caused by poor bacteria levels = stressed fish, stressed fish = stopping of production of slime coat on body (a fishs' only immune system) = sick fish

wood_nymph said:

do not clean all the water out. imagine your his tank as a mini eco-system it had microbacteria breaking down waste turning it into less toxic by-products that take way longer to build up. taking out all the water kills the colony, adding synthetic bacteric such as cycle is only meant to be a kick start for the colony not its stable. on a further less publicised note all those synethic bacterias are designed to be put in a week before adding the fish so double the dose if the fish is going sraight in. doing all those water changes is most likely sending the amonia and nitrite levels crazy (these are the biggest killer of fish) ideally you should only be changing 1/3 of the water ONCE a week. bad water cemistry caused by poor bacteria levels = stressed fish, stressed fish = stopping of production of slime coat on body (a fishs' only immune system) = sick fish

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couldent agree more!!! NEVER EVER clean all your water out, they need the bacteria etc that has built up in there!! have u though about getting a heater? even though they are labrinth fish they are tropical...

Hey guys, thanks for the replies.

Just as a note, I am all too aware of cycling, nitrites, nitrates, ammonia, friendly bacteria etc; I keep a freshwater turtle so have a massive canister filter, researched all about cycling etc and understand it very well.

With the total water changes at the moment are to totally remove the meds; when the problem with the betta is fixed I'll only be doing frequent partial water changes, because, as I said before I do NOT want to get a filter for this betta (though I know a heap of people will argue against this decision, that you can change flow rates etc; I have thought about all of this, and unless a filter can function perfectly with NO current, my betta will not like it and I'm pretty sure it'll stress him out more)

Also I didn't want to return this guy to the petstore, because chances are if he went back the problem would be left untreated and would get worse. Pretty much every fish you see in the stores here have fin rot, and this guy had the least-severe case of it. I'd rather keep him and pay for the treatments so he can survive, vs. saving a few dollars and swapping him for another fish.

As I said, thanks for the replies; I'll also mention that an aquarium heater is on its way (requested my parents buy it at a store in Brisbane where its less than half the price here, and for them to send it up) and a silk plant as well.

Another question; when I came back up to uni this semester I brought a box of the ceramic rings that I use in my turtles canister filter as biomedia; if I stuck a handful of these into his tank amongst the gravel, it would be beneficial by providing adequate surfaces for the friendly bacteria? I know how they work in a canister filter, and I'm sure this would work.. but would it be worthwhile in that it would make a noticeable difference in ammonia and nitrites?