Betta Disease

When your betta contracted a diseases it is devastating to see him mope around in the tank and often time sits on the bottom accumulating more disease. You will notice signs let off by your betta telling you that he is sick, first and foremost his folded fins and tail compress tightly to his body,
Your betta will be sluggish and look tiresome, his color will fade out and loses appetite. His behavior will show no aggression towards other male betta or mirror reflection.
You should be worry by now, so start observing and noting what illness he has.
Time is critical for you to diagnose the illness at a early stage and medicate your betta back to health.

One misconception newbie fish enthusiast fail to realized when betta breeding are minor injuries leading to bacteria infection and disease.
If you ever decide to take up breeding with your betta it is vital that you learn the essential steps to proper breeding, you will be glad you did. Without the knowledge you risk innumerable diseases to your fish.

The most common betta disease is rotting on the tail, fins and mouth. This disease show rotting tail or fin that looks un-natural and shorten in length. Rotting starts on the fin and tail than move to the mouth and body. The rotting area will swell up along the edge, it will look like shreds of meat from wounds or cut. The effected area will quickly get fugal contamination and a cotton fungus will grow on your fish.
Like all disease if not detect and treat for your betta will die.
To lessen sickness and maintain good helath regular water change is a must. Dirty water from un-eaten food and waste build up I can assure you illness will overtake your betta.
Start treatment for rotting disease by adding aquarium salt one tea spoon per gallon with frequent water change. Your fish should resume health in a weeks’ time.

Another common disease your betta catch from poor water quality is
pop-eye disease. Once your betta is effected his eyes will swell and bulge out from the socket.
This disease cause by bacteria infection will kill your betta or can leave your fish blind. Do not let the problem prolong hoping the disease will go away, take immediate action and treat the symptoms. Treat this disease as you would with rot tails and fins with add antibiotics to assure total elimination of bacteria.

Ick disease is contagious.
Effected with Ick, your fish will feel itchy and tried to rub against gravel or objects in the tank to get rid of it. Ick will appear as little white dot that spreads throughout the fish body like salt grain. Ick disease is a parasite that hangs off the fish and feeds on the fish itself. This disease is contracted from frozen worms or live food you feed or live plants that you put in your tank previously ick effected.
Remember this Ick is very contagious.
If you have more than one fish in your tank and one shows sign of Ick disease you will have to treat the whole tank.
Ick is sensitive to temperature and that’s exactly what you’ll use to get rid of them.
Raise the temperature to 80-85 degrees.
Neutralize the tank with a dose of aquarium salt tea-spoon per gallon. Add ick medication accordingly to direction on bottle. Within days you should see the white dots falling off your fish. Do a complete water change to achieve optimum health against future disease.

Now let me inform you about one of several internal disease that may take the live of your fish. These disease are fatal and hard to cure, in most case you will not detect the symptom until the disease has reach full blown.

Dropsy disease is unlike many other illness that show physical sign, once you see the first sign of physical appearance the disease has reach full blown. Physical indication results in bloated belly, flare outward scales and discoloration of body pigment. There is a range of medication that help neutralize the progress of internal parasite. Although I will not list procedure to cure such fatal disease. Once reaches full blown, medication may not cure your fish back to health. The effects of internal disease attacks your betta’s immune system directly. Once disease takes over even medication alone can kill your fish.
What I will tell you is to avoid ever reaching this stage of fatality.
• Avoid feeding live food, (go with process food like pallets)
• Keep less fish in one tank (more fish equals more disease)
• Add aquarium salt as neutralize
• Maintain constant temperature with a water heater. (tropical water fish lives in temperature 80-85 degrees)
• Regular water change is your optimum Good health and hygiene fighter against illness.