# Help! It's a betta emergency!



## Anpa1019 (Jul 3, 2008)

Help! My betta fish had some moderate fin/tail rot that I had been treating for a long time. I moved him from his 1 gallon to a 6.6 gallon, heated, filtered tank on Saturday. His tail was looking great and I was beginning to see a lot of new regrowth. I was super excited and just wrote a post the other day saying how great he looks like. When I woke up this morning I saw a new rip in his tail. I thought maybe the part that was healing might have re-riped so I figured I would wait until I got home from work and see how he is doing. I just got home and almost started crying when I saw him. His tail is twice as bad as it was during the fin rot. It looks like his tail and fin went through a blender. There are huge chunks missing and the pieces that are left hanging are really ragged...they weren't this ragged when he originally had the fin/tail rot. I have been doing 50% water changes and adding prime as the conditioner. What happened? What did I do wrong? Is his fin rot back? Can it get this bad in 8 hours? I did a 100% water change and now am relying on help from you guys. Please help, I am so worried about him.


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## welchrock (Jan 4, 2008)

if you have other fish and/or already have some on-hand, Stress Coat wouldn't hurt. your fish is likely just stressed from a)fin rot and b)the new tank change. hopefully he'll hang in there and this is just a situation where it needs to take a step back to take two steps forward.


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## gil_ong (Apr 15, 2008)

100% water change?


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## mykidsmom (Mar 5, 2008)

Have you had the water tested for ammonia and nitrites? Tank may not be 'cycled' and *ammonia or nitrites *might be causing or contributing to the damage. (I have read that ammonia damage _can_ look like fin rot, so maybe it's _possible _that it was _never_ actually 'fin rot' but ammonia damage from the beginning.) The water changes and Stress Coat should help, or maybe add a little aquarium salt (it is supposed to help fish withstand the presence of some ammonia when a tank is 'cycling') but _nothing_ will help long term if there is an ammonia or nitrite problem that isn't addressed and monitored closely!

I don't have any bettas, but for my cichlids, I like to use Melafix to help heal nipped fins.

Hope your beautiful boy recovers quickly!


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## hacket (Sep 18, 2007)

I wouldn't recommend changing so much water at a time. That will just stress the fish out even more. In a filtered tank of that size I'd recommend 30%-50% a day while you are putting medicine in. If you were putting medicine in before and it cleared it up, start doing that again in the 6.6 gallon, and doing what I recommended for water changes. I've never had to deal with fin-rot on a betta, so I don't know how long you will need to treat him, but this is a good start. The biggest thing though is to make sure your water parameters are correct for a betta, and to not change so much water at time.


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