Tyrannosaurus

I want to make my 80 liter 95 x 35 x 30 tank into a planted tank, but I'm a bit confused by the plethora of lighting options out there at the moment. I am looking at these lights here: http://www.trademe.co.nz/Browse/Listing ... =276607921 Would they be sufficient? Are they overkill? Are there better lights I should be looking at? I really know nothing about lighting or anything like that, so any help would be much appreciated. Thanks!

Just to be clear chappies and chapettes, these fish are in a decent sized tank, (100 liters with just 15 fish in it total) with good flow, a filter AND a UV sterilizer. The only obvious downside is that they have approximately one liter of swimming space each, which would be nice to expand on, and which I will when I can get tank dividers made up. Most of the fish look great, the guy in the picture obviously does not. I'm concerned however, because fin rot can spread so easily I've been doing more frequent water changes (daily) and been aggressively cleaning away any algae that pops up. (There's a brownish algae that seems to be spreading through the tanks quite quickly.) There is a lot more bubblenesting going on now, even from the fish with much of his fins attacked by fin rot. So, for now, things look like they are on the mend.

I don't have a camera that takes terribly good pictures, but I am pretty sure it is not tail biting because the darker ring is on all his fins. I could be wrong though, I would like to be wrong, they are in the coke bottles, perhaps that is just too small and boring. This is the best I can get at the moment...

Thanks, adodge. None of these sit on the bottom much at all, in fact, the only time I really see them on the bottom is when they're sleeping. I will keep up the water changes and salt and hope they come right. They've all had the full dose of Furan-2, so hopefully that heads things off at the pass. I did have one seemingly random death recently, but I put that down to some sort of defect, she never did look quite 'right', and I did have quite an issue with a dark black/grown/green algae that spread in spite of the fact that the tank has been cycled for well over 6 months now. It's been agressively cleaned away and, as I said, I added the UV sterilizer to catch anything that might be floating Could the algae have been related?

Thanks I have Wunder Tonic also, but I used Furan-2 as a first line measure. I don't see white fungus on the fish, but several of them are definitely suffering from some sort of rot malady. The fins are curled up and black on the edges more than anything else. One fish has a large portion of his tail fin missing due to this, and his other fins aren't looking hot either. Other than that, he is healthy and eating food and whatnot. Though I have noticed that bettas seem to eat and swim quite well even when they are quite sick.

So I have one of those set ups with several bettas in coke bottles. Not too many, about ten or so, ranging in age and sex. I noticed that one or two of the males fins' are looking quite ragged and eaten away, so I treated the full course of Furan-2. The tank has more than adequate filtration and I even added a UV sterilizer to cut down on any bacteria and parasites in the water. My question is, how do I know the treatment is working? Most of the fish look healthy, but I assume if one or two are affected, all of them will have been exposed, which is why I treated the whole tank. Suggestions, anyone?

Beautiful fish Good work!

The first spawn definitely ate hatched BBS, they had nothing else to eat and their bellies were always full of orange. It just didn't seem to do them very much good. It is possible however, that given they were my first spawn, other factors were at play.

I've been feeding my latest spawn microworms, and I can say that they are doing much better than the last spawn, which ate only BBS. The last spawn I had spent most of their time belly sliding across the bottom of the tank, only surfacing for air when they had to, whereas these guys are quite perky and zippy by comparison. I was wondering, is it necessary to change them to BBS? I'm having a really hard time hatching any live shrimp, and the fry are patently disinterested in the decap stuff I have to feed them. At the moment they are just coming up three weeks old. Should I keep trying to get them to eat decap BBS, or is a microworm diet okay for fry?

NVM there's a post on this about 5 questions down

Interesting, well, I guess we will see, thanks for the information!

Well they are now three months old, I think they are all females, unless there are some very late bloomers. It is possible that the one fish that does not have stress lines is a male. I'm just a little confused as to why they are constantly stressed, water parameters are good, etc, my other bettas lose their color when something stressful occurs, but these ones always, no matter what, seem to be displaying the dark lines.

Just wondering if anyone else has experienced this and knows what causes it. I have a small number of fry from the first spawning I did. All except one of them constantly display horizontal stress lines, I am guessing because of some trouble in the way they were raised. I have several bettas, none of which display the same problem, even though all are kept in the same conditions. Anyone have any idea how to avoid this problem?

Well, four days in he was looking utterly miserable, lying on the bottom of the tank, head down, back arched weirdly and listing to the side. The white cottony growths had all but taken over his gill plates, and after 10 days of being swollen and suffering and not responding to any treatment, I figured the kindest thing would be euthanasia. Poor little guy. RIP.

They gave me trichozole and told me to crush a quarter tablet into his water daily. His white cottony growths are worse today, I don't know if I caught this early enough, sadly, but I'll at least give this a chance to work. They said if it doesn't work in 5 days that they had another antibiotic I could try, but they didn't say what it was.

I got some antibiotics from the vet today. Hopefully they help somewhat.

It's strange, because he was in a tank that had water circulating amongst 14 other fish (mix of danios and other bettas,) and none of the others are symptomatic at all, and this guy has been swollen for at least 10 days now. He also seems to have now developed a cottony white growth on one side of his gills. My water parameters are good, the other fish are fine and I haven't fed frozen bloodworms or any other frozen food except for once and that was well over a month ago or more. Could that be the cause?

Thanks for the advice and tips everyone. Fish really literally explode from this condition? Would it be better just to euthanize him now? I've tried ethryomicin, methylene blue and epsom salt baths, nothing has made a difference. I don't want to him to suffer and then possibly explode, what an awful way to die.

Hi everyone, thanks for your help. Just to confirm, it's definitely not constipation, but this mystery bloat that I mentioned and linked to in the opening post. He's still bloated, but he is passing waste. In spite of his bloating, he seems quite cheerful and is eating and even bubble nesting. This is common with 'mystery bloat'. I'd like to try some antibiotics, but I am having significant issues finding any for fish. Americans seems to have access to all kinds of medications, but we have almost none. I tried to find Furan, but one LFS does not stock it. The other claimed it did, but when I went in to get some, told me that 'they had just sold the last bottle.' Yeah, right. I'm going to give a vet a call tomorrow to see if I can procure anything. It seems ridiculous that there is so little out there to keep fish healthy. Stores stock hundreds of daft tiny aquariums that you couldn't fit a minnow in, but necessary medications to make sure your fish doesn't die? No, don't be silly. /rant.

Okay, thank you.

Hi, I've got a fish looking pretty sick from some sort of mystery bloat / dropsy condition, and some people say that Furan is the answer. Is that a vet prescribed drug? Thanks

I'll treat for dropsy as well. He is not pine coning yet, so hopefully it works. He came out of a tank with several other fish in it, including a couple of young fry. I don't see any of them showing symptoms, and I have quarantined him now, but he showed signs of illness in that tank. Is there anything I can do to try to make sure the others don't go the way he has?

I'm trying the epsom salt baths now. I am hoping they work, he really is horribly bloated. I tried the peas, but this is pretty obviously not constipation. Here's hoping it doesn't turn into full blown dropsy and that he improves.

What would you advise? Should I euthanize him? I really don't want to, but I also don't want him to suffer. He was my first fish and he's also the father of my first spawn. The idea of having to kill him makes me incredibly sad.

I have a Betta swollen up like a bowling ball, it's not dropsy as far as I can tell, and it's not constipation either apparently. I've been told that it could be 'Mystery Bloat'.http://www.ultimatebettas.com/index.php?showtopic=40524 Does anyone have any insight or advice on this? I noticed several days ago (probably four,) that my crowntail male was bloated on his underside. The rest of his body looks normal, and there are no stand out scales, so I think it is constipation. I have pretty much fasted him for four days and fed him a little bit of pea twice now, but there has been no improvement. He seems happy and healthy enough, still swimming well and looking for food, but he is blown up like a bowling ball underneath. I do not see any stringy poo, or any poo at all for that matter. All my other bettas are fine and healthy. Added this pic: