Urgent help please!

Hi guys,

I've just found one of my male Bettas with raised scales.. his colour has faded a lot too, it's just come on all of a sudden, he was perfectly fine earlier today.. Just noticed as I was cleaning his section in the divider.. REALLY worried about this

No other problems with him as far as I can see, he's eating fine.. swimming around and none of the other boys seem to have anything wrong with them either. 30% water change yesterday, all water levels are fine.

I've put him into a separate container, added Tetra General Tonic and put a bit of extra salt in there too (as I saw the raised scales are from water retention)
I've just got rid of the white spot in the tank and temp is at 31C right now, should I drop this?

Any more help would be greatly appreciated.
-Kay

EDIT: I put urgent as I understand raised scales is a symptom of Dropsy... Just thought I'd add that, I hope it's not as I understand it's pretty much a killer

 

If it is dropsy there will be no help that I know of.

Keep en eye on him and if it gets worse just help him out of misery.

Be careful of adding salt to any medicine.

 

@Vis Am watching him like a hawk, his scales aren't hugely raised.. but still noticeable, he isn't bloated or puffy anywhere on his body so I have no idea what it could be really hope it doesn't have to go that way! Don't think I could do it :cry:

 

Then you can't do much more. Maybe its something else and he will recover.

 

Yes please drop the temp slowly to about 28 deg try not to go over 28 deg as this could be the reason for the dropsy

 

@HennieRoux I've started dropping it slowly.. it's one of your boys too really hope he pulls through

I had put up the temp to speed up getting rid of the white spot, my VT boy had it pretty bad and the other boys had started to get a few on their tail fins

 

I agree with @HennieRoux, lower the temp to 28*C. Normal temp must range between 26*C to 28*C. Best to keep it at 26*C, if you have to treat for a disease like White Spot, you can then raise it to 28*C as to speed up the life cycle of the White Spot in order to kill it faster over a shorter period of time. About the raised scales... Dropsy is a common disease among betta's in captivity in my opinion. I have only managed to pull a female through once. All my that died, died of this dreaded disease or old age. Nothing seems to save them and once they got it and you do managed to pull it through, if it should happen to catch it again... it will certainly die the 2nd time from research I've done. I do hope and pray it does not have Dropsy otherwise....RIP. Sorry for the bad news but that is the reality of it.

 

Thanks @Charles, keeping an eye on him.. is dropsy contagious? I can't see any issues on any other fish, all the white spot is cleared up now but haven't been able to get a good look at my girls.. Ugh REALLY hope this isn't dropsy :cry: how does it come about? or is it just one of those things?

 

From what I researched on the net it is not contagious, but if it dies and the other fish feed of it then they contract the disease this way and you can loose a whole community this way in a matter of days. How it comes about I don't know, answers to this is questionable...sorry can't help you much on that subject. You can google it.

 

I've had a bit of a google, can't really get a straight answer seems it's quite an unknown disease information wise

 

Please let me know if he pulls through?

But you will be lucky if he does, remember fixing white spot by raising the temp is a quick selution, and the problem with this high temp is that people leave it for to long and this is a cause of dropsy! There is some good meds on the market, rather go that route, if you decide to go the temp route monitor it and get it back down asap.

Holding thumbs

 

Sigh his stomach is now looking a bit bloated, his scales seem to actually be 'going down' a bit but his colouring is faded and his fins look a bit clamped :cry: just gave him some fresh water and a little bit of salt

 

@Cookie - try the Rooibos tea treatment, Just float a bag of Rooibos tea in his tank for an hour or two (I leave it in for at least 2 hours). It does stain the water but you will get rid of the tannins by doing water changes.

 

Thanks @Wyvren, will give it a try.. He's still looking quite active so I've still got some hope

 

Losing colour...
Just a thought here coz I lost my last one like this, Poisoning, Did you use any poison in or near the house lately ? Even those plug in the wall things Doom spray bla bla bla...
I lost mine like that he was fine and the next day he was pale, didn't swim around much also he wasn't eating had his fins down and scales up
But the loss of colour was the most obvious thing He went really pale almost grey from Blue and Red.

It kinda looked like Ammonia poisoning but with viscous colour loss and no rotting fins.

 

Nope, we don't use any aerosols or any kind of plug-ins etc in the room with the tank, we're kinda anal about that kind of thing.. All the water levels are fine so I can't see what it could be.. Also, if it was poisoning wouldn't the others have it? I have them in a betta divider til I fix up our spare 2ft tank to house them all so they're all sharing the same water, also the girls are in the community tank too along with the swordies.. Wouldn't it affect them all or more than one of them?

 

So the way I have it,
My other fish where perfectly fine 2 but they don't breath air like labyrinth fish do so other fish's air gets water filtered before they inhale and Fighters air doesn't but I'm just mentioning it to exclude that this might be a possible cause. If you don't use any poison then It's probably not that
I had 2 females and one male at the time and 1 female and the male died in the same unexplainable way before I figured out what the cause was so once I switched off the Mozzie plug-in the 2nd Female slowly became better. None of my other fish where effected in any way...

 

@RFSwanepoel we have 4 other boys and 7 girls in there too and none have anything wrong with them so I don't think it's any kind of airborne poisoning or anything. Have put some rooibos in now (thanks @Wyvren) so will just keep an eye on him and keep our fingers, toes, legs etc crossed for him

 

I hope it works

 

Hows the man keeping up?