BettaFishMommy

If he is suffering fin rot i would change your tank to bare bottom, it will be much easier to do 100% water changes, to keep the water super clean to aid in healing. use a glass candle holder or two (votive size-make sure you get all old wax out...lol), add gravel to that and plant your plants in it, my ludwigia does awesome in exactly this set up, but in a 10 gal with filter, and i don't even use any ferts, just 12 hr light.

the only time i ever had a problem with fin rot on any of my fish was when i had gravel in my bowls and it was more work to do w/c's, so i didn't do them as often..... i've learned a lot since then! :thumbs:

"If he were mine, I think I'd use water from the tank he's used to, treat with Prime & Melafix, add some Epsom salt, and up the temperature to 78-80 F"

you do not need to add things like salt and melafix to a bettas water unless you are treating for a specific condition, disease, bacteria, etc. just use a good water conditioner. if he is not showing signs of any infection i would not medicate. i keep all my tanks at a near constant 80F and my finkids do great at that temp. i used to add salt, but much research says that it is not necessary and actually causes problems with the slime coat. since i removed the salt they are more active and seem happier.

I have heard from numerous sources that prime is not good to use in an unfiltered betta bowl, due to the ingredients, so if you are going to temporarily move him i would think about getting a different water conditioner (i use aquaplus and it works just fine in a bowl).

A good container for a betta bowl is the bue/green tinted oblong plastic "kritter keeper" by living world. Play Pen Pets in the Millwoods Towne Centre Mall has them, 1/2 gal to 2 gal (approx). not too expensive either, i think $17 bucks for the largest size. comes with vented, hinged lid. i use them for all my bettas and they work great. fit in the sink for cleaning too! the oblong shape gives for more room to swim back and forth.

I noticed you said your betta is eating flakes. might be best to do a bit of a diet switch/variation. my fish get betta pellets, freezedried bloodworms, frozen bloodworms, and frozen brine shrimp. think of it this way: would you want to eat the same thing every day for your whole life? lol.

To the starter of this thread: that was probably the same big box pet store i went into a couple weeks ago. me: "boy your goldfish don't look good". employee: "yeah, i don't know what happened to them". ARGH! and even i, who has only kept fish for half a year, could see it was obvious dropsy and some type of fungus. worst part of it was that i couldn't see any evidence of the tank being medicated.

another well known LFS i went to on the southside had two tanks (that i saw, maybe more?) with ich. i actually had to inform the employees about it. one of these tanks was baby albino bristlenoses, one at the front was so infested it was twitching. so sad.

on a happier note, the pet shop i deal with regularily always has healthy fish, clean tanks, knowledgable employees (the full time ones, anyway), and i have bought all of my fish from there with no problems at all (knock on wood).

I refuse to buy fish at any of the big box stores due to the lack of knowledgable employees. i once overheard one of these employees trying to sell a common pleco to somebody that said their tank was 20 gal. ARGH!

Barbs and Swords are never a good tank mate for a betta. Tetras for the most part will leave a betta alone.

I would not treat with Melafix, as there are reports of it being too harsh for labrynth fishes. You might want to try a product called Betta Revive by Hikari. I know for a fact the Play Pen Pets in Millwoods Towne Centre Mall carries it. $4. i use it for all fin problems and it works well. buy a couple of them, the package is small. it is a sulfa based med with methylene blue and malachite green, among other ingredients.

How big is this tank? seems to be a lot of fish in there already.

that's it, he's gone. That was fast, i bought him 2 fridays ago. within 4 days he started looking limp. The fins started clamping. Then fraying. I went to to the pet store, they recommended bettafix. Applied bettafix for 3 days. Fish just got worse. Then his body and fins covered with a white film. Cottony growth on fins. Fins dacaying and falling apart. Went back to fish store and they recommended kanaplex, saying bettafix isn't powerful enough. Great, why didn't they just direct me to kanaplex to start with instead of wasting valuable time??. anyway, too little too late. oh well, at least the frog got to munch on the poor boy for a while until i discovered his corpse.

Next step - replace the fish. Do I need to sterilize the whole tank and contents? It was pretty clean to start with. Furthermore, web sites seem to say that the bacteria and fungus are present in all water and all aquaria regardless.

I would sterilize everything. awesome instructions are here: bettatalk.com. look for the sanitization page, i can't remember how the heck to get to it.

Poor little guy. it's always more heartbreaking when they become a tankmate's lunch.