please help my fighter

[churchj1]

hi guys i need advice

should i be worried my fighters fins have split and have had almost chunks out of his tail

it started last week when i noticed he had a few patched of thin fin and then i noticed he had a slight red tinge this has only come

out since i noticed his sparce fin parts.

and just overnight there was a split in his tail fin and chunks out of it

i have a 40l tank and i have a smal bristlenose in there but they are good mates and are happy together in each others space (well whilst the lights on) could he have done this ???

there is not to much current in the tank but he does his best to try play in it (i thought fighters wern supposed to like current but this one sure does) its like he surfs it he is really active and recognises human activity very playful active fish and this hasnt changed since i noticed the other physical changes.

i feed him well on betta flakes and bloodworm and do weekly water changes of 30-40% at 28 degrees and have 3 live small plants.

is there anything i should or should not be doing

please see the pics and let me no wat u think (let me know if the pics dont work in photo bucket)

http://s962.photobucket.com/albums/ae108/churchj1/chuck/

[SamH]

That's a pretty fish. I'm going with fin biting, Bettas usually do it when they are bored or stressed, nothing to worry about really so long as the water is clean and the food is good (high protein). Maybe show him a little hand mirror once or twice a day to help with the boredom? Maybe even a lady Betta :lol: Just keep them apart if you do get one.

HTH

[Adrienne]

The other option to what SamH has said is that it is possibly fin rot. It can be fast acting and very hard to notice the signs in dark coloured fighters or fighters with red in their fins and tail.

Can be caused by several things but with this you will notice if you look really carefullly that there should be some whitish looking areas at the edges of the tail and or fins. If you look slightly further up from these you may see a reddish line (a bit like a water mark on a piece of paper). The reddish line is the sign of bacterial infection.

If your tank was bare bottomed you would see the pieces of tail and fin lying where they had fallen off.

To help your fighter in the mean time I would

1. Daily water changes

2. Reduce the current flow as once the rips are there high current is likely to make them worse

3. Add salt to your tank (rock salt from the supermarket is cheapish and works well) at the rate of 1 gram per litre of water. When you water change only add one gram per litre for the amount you remove as when water evaporates the salt remains).

If it worsens I would look at hitting it with something like furan2.

How long have you had this boy?

[BikBok]

That's a pretty fish. I'm going with fin biting, Bettas usually do it when they are bored or stressed, nothing to worry about really so long as the water is clean and the food is good (high protein). Maybe show him a little hand mirror once or twice a day to help with the boredom? Maybe even a lady Betta :lol: Just keep them apart if you do get one.

HTH

do betta bite their own fins?? My lil guy has a ripped dorsal fin and I can't figure out how he did it.

He isn't at all interested in the mirror.

[ryanjury]

As everyone else has said keep the water clean add salt and it should be fine.. If the damage continues to get worse (finrot as Adrienne has suggested then you will need to treat that). Another thing is to be careful not to feed your fighter too well especially on bloodworms as fighters are pretty prone to dropsy and bloodworms seem to be associated with it.

[churchj1]

WOW thanks everyone for all the suggestions il get onto the rock salt asap i havent noticed any white bits on his fins but il have another good look and try to reduce the current and get onto water changes. thanks adrienne always helpful with ur knowledge.

thanks samh he is a beautiful boy and so fully of life and he can follow my finger and do all sorts of funny things (i no it sounds silly but im sure he knows how to play) his tank is on our kitchen bench so he sees alot of movement and i hang around the tank for ages at night and he loves it. i have tryed with the mirror thing but hes not really interested but i still keep doing it he flared big time wen i got the bristnose and it was awsome his metalics lit up and he went really black

and that is the only time iv seen him flare.

i feed him once a day a small pinch of flakes and then every saturday i feed him a small bit of bloodworm.

i have had him for a lil over a month now he is round 4 months old i got him from dlums aka john he has some beauties

the pictues of him are a little dark but his metalics are stunning when he gets exited or its feeding time :bounce:

[SamH]

do betta bite their own fins?? My lil guy has a ripped dorsal fin and I can't figure out how he did it.

He isn't at all interested in the mirror.

That could be tail biting, some times you can catch them in the act. UB forums have a fair few threads about it.

[BettaSplendens]

I would also make sure nothing sharp is in the tank, mine seem to like ripping there fins on my driftwood.

Mike.

[churchj1]

i went and got the rock salt and did a water change and me and my partner got the mirror out and for the first time persisted on following him with it and sure enough he flared and it was the first time my partner had seen him flare and he was amazed at how he changed colour and what flaring actually was n then he (chuck my fish) thought he was the big boy in the tank and flared at my bristlenose licky who was too busy cleaning to notice -chuck soon got board of him and came back for more mirror but he didnt last much longer after that and continued on his missions around the tank i dont think he is a very agressive fighter but is very inquisative

im not sure if what im looking at on his fin is what adrienne described as fin rot or if it is just the tinyist (not really white)

but light coloured ripped part and it is just that light colour because of the tear?

but there was definitly no physical white bits if u were just looking over him and no "water mark like line"

i have noticed one other thing that i find him in the mornings when i get up he at the bottem of the tank resting, where usually i would find him up behind the pump resting. is this concerning ??

mike- i have a fake half pipe log in the tank and went over it and all the edges r blunt as that was my first suspission i need to find something that i can reduce the amount of current from the filter that will be the next thing i do

thanks

[Adrienne]

Is there any way we can see a photo of him with his ripped tail as that would help. If you do not know how to post a pic if you email it to me I will post it later on today when I get home from work.

Once fighters get bigger they find it very hard to hold their tail and fins up under a lot of current and therefore tend to rest more on the bottom of the tank. They sometimes just tip over and lie on their side as it is easier on them than to try and stay upright. However lying on gravel often does lead to problems with their tail and fins getting tatty looking which then opens them up to things like fin rot as the bottom of the tank is not often perfectly clean.

[SamH]

http://s962.photobucket.com/albums/ae108/churchj1/chuck/

Photos are there Adrienne

[churchj1]

thanks samh

in the 1st and 3rd ones you can see the thin parts of the fin where it hasnt broken but is very thin almost see through

and the third pic has you can very clearly see the red on his top fin, this colour has only come out in the last week or so

is it possible for a fighter to still be developing such colours at this stage

yea i was watching him last nyt sitting on the bottem and he seems to just go there to rest

thanks guys

[SamH]

is it possible for a fighter to still be developing such colours at this stage

They can change colour throughout their lives, especially marbles.

yea i was watching him last nyt sitting on the bottem and he seems to just go there to rest

My fighters always lie on the bottom or on leaves when resting unless there is insufficient oxygen, then they hang at the surface.

[Adrienne]

Right I have looked again at the photos. :oops:

Its a bit hard to tell from them what he's done so what does the tail look like now? Compare your pics to your fish. Is there more missing or is it starting to grow back? Yes, they can change colouring up to about 7 months of age and the black flames will as they have red colouring as well as the black.

[Adrienne]

Looked again at the pics (enlarged) and I'm going to go towards the fin rot side of things. Study him really closely and if you can get an updated pic please post it especially if you can get him to flare because that would help a lot.

[churchj1]

hi adrienne

http://s962.photobucket.com/albums/ae108/churchj1/chuck/

here are some new pics i took tonyt and yes his condition has worsened a little bit i can nowjust see a white edge as per pics

(let me know it the pics dont work)

i will go to the pet shop and see my resident fish expert craig (he said he uses this sight as well) and get some furan2 as you suggested. how long does this furan stuff take to kick in ??

i have again tonyt done the rock salt and water change

thanks for your help its so good to have great advice

[Adrienne]

Given that he is a beautiful good quality well bred boy it would be worth (in my own personal opinion) to take the option to use furan 2. Remember that furan 2 is a known cancer causing agent in mice and handle accordingly i.e. try not to touch. It used to come in capsules, now comes in plastic packs which makes it much easier not to touch. One course of 4 days should do.

I can see the white edges, can you see any pink/red lines up above these as usually they appear and then the fins/tail fray back to this edge and then it happens again and again. However, in saying that when the fins and tail grow back the new growth comes through clear, then whitens and eventually colours back up. However this does not look like new growth as it normally starts at the end and works back up, not around the edges.

I've had this happen to a couple of my breeding males (in individual tanks, each tank unfiltered) in the last week. Looking stunning one night, the next morning literally no tail. In one case the fish was like yours but black/green with red and in the other pure red. Never before have I had two fish go down with it together :evil:

[churchj1]

ok i went and got some furan 2 from my pet shop and started the treatment on sat

the guy i see there is craig he said he used to be an executive on here to he is in porirua he has given me lots of help too

i will be doin my 3rd treament tonyt its funny how the water changes colour so much it looks like raro :lol:

and how it sais try not to touch handle accordingly am i allowed to stick my hand in the tank tonyt befor i add the 3rd

application ?? cas i got a new plant as well which i need to want to put in there (its just sitting in other water at the mo)

will it still affect my skin or should i wait untill the treatment corse has finished in the tank to play around in the tank?

so hopefully this works n he will be back to being beautiful

when u said that his fins will grow back around how long does it take for this to happen??

did your 2 fish come back to good health?

is there any main reasons fin rot is caused ? perhaps something i could do differently

his tail hasnt got any worse tho so i guess that is good