BellaOnline Forums Home and Garden Fish Help with Fin Rot

I went into your table of contents but the link to info about fin rot was broken, so please excuse this post.

My mother recently purchased a male betta about 4 months ago. He had been doing fine until about 2 weeks ago when I began to notice the first signs of fin rot. Since then his tail has been rapidly shredding, and we are extremely concerned.

She has already added aquarium salt to try to soothe it, but she's worried it's not enough. We have three different medicines on hand, two of which seem to be designated for, among other things, fin rot. They are both by the company Mardel. One is Tetracyline tablets, and the other is Maracyn-Two. We also have something called Acriflavine drops, though I haven't heard of it before. I was wondering which of these, if any, you would recommend for her betta's treatment, and how to go about it.

Any help will be greatly apprieciated, and thank you in advance.

Edit: And I know I post here a lot asking questions... sorry. D: But you guys seem to know a heck of a lot more than me or my mom, so I hope you don't mind. ^^;

BettaFix is a good med to try first because it isn't stressful for the fish. It's a natural teatree oil and will usually do the trick if you follow the directions.

You have to treat for 7 days straight...adding more med each day...which can use up alot of the bottle if you have them in a larger tank..even a one gallon.

So this is what I do when I have had to treat with this....

I put the betta in a walmart sized clear plastic bowl with fresh clean water. Because he will be in a smaller amount of water...I set up another bowl the same size with the daily added bettafix. Because it's very important to keep the water clean when treating for this issue....I change the water in the bowl every day and make sure I add the right amount of bettafix. Each day I switch the betta to the bowl with the clean water and proper amount of med and then setup the other bowl for the next day.

You can also add aquarium salt as well. put some in and gradually increase the amount every day.

Bettafix? Alright, I'm going to have to try to get some of that. The others we already have are too harsh?

Well ok, that sounds good. We can do that. ^_^

Thank you SO much, EMG. Again, I'm sorry to post this here, but the table of contents link just led to the front page of bellaonline. o_O Well, anyway, I realy apprieciate it. We all love this little guy way too much to lose him to fin rot. D:

Well we went to 4 different pet stores looking for the Bettafix, and got told that the company's gone out of buisness. o_O Any idea if that's true or not.

Anyway, we got something called Melafix, which seems to be made of the same stuff as the Bettafix, the teatree oil. Hopefully this is just as good?

Thanks again. <3

MelaFix is what I use, and I'm pretty sure it works just the same. Much easier to find anyway, without buying online. Your best bet is just to keep the water clean, and keep the medicines to a minimum - I lost a fish to what started out as fin rot because I overmedicated. Some lessons you learn the hard way I guess...

Alright then, thanks. <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> And I'll make sure she keeps that in mind about the overmedicating problem. ^_^

Hi Keiran. Sorry, I missed this post and will have to take a look at the broken link. Melafix is a stronger solution of bettafix. I had not heard they went out of business and will be bummed if that's the case. Melafix is fine, just use very little of it. the nice thing about bettafix is that is was blended with small bowls in mind - what Emg said about floating a cup is a very good way to treat without using too much of the 'fix'. keep up the increasing dose regime with a bit of salt. Like Emg says. <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Yes, don't use those tetracycline meds. They are way too strong and usually end up killing the fish by bringing on secondary infections.

also it helps to suck up the cruds daily with a turkey baster as this keeps the bottom clean. Fin rot is caused by fins tearing, and then dragging across foul things and letting bacteria get a toe hold for infection. Good luck and let us know how it goes!