CT Betta tail concerns, and questions

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nynikki

nynikki

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Aug 7, 2007
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Today I noticed that the ends of my Betta's tail are all balled up. Kind of looks like when you take a piece of hair and singe it. On Friday, I did a thorough cleaning of the tank, I didn't change the filter pad, but I did scrape algae off the tank, and gave the gravel a good rinse with hot water. The water params were 0,0,20 prior to cleaning, and are now 0,0,0. I also added a heater - it's an Aquaclear by Hagen - (I know not a favorite, but it was the only one that I could find small enough that had an automatic turn off feature). The water has been hovering around 80 now, whereas before it was dropping down to the 68-70 at night.

So the question is this... has he singed his tail on the heater? Or is there something else going on? It doesn't look unhealthy, I mean like it's rotting. Just little balls at the ends. Do high levels of Nitrates cause fin rot?
 
12 Volt Man

12 Volt Man

AC Members
Feb 11, 2007
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I have a few crowntail bettas in tanks without heaters and I have noticed that over time (months) mine have done that.

I assumed it was the way that the fins grow as they reach maturity.

it doesn't sound like fin rot - the balling looks like the way the fins have grown.

I can try and post some closeups of the same thing on my betta later on.
 
platytetrafan

platytetrafan

AC Members
Jan 20, 2007
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It doesn't sound like fin rot but just keep an eye on the betta for any further changes in the fins. I do have one question why are you rinsing your gravel when you clean the tank? All you need to do is gravel vac scrubbing the algae off the sides is fine. You should have some level of nitrate in your water nitrate level of 20 is fine nitrate level of 0 is not fine. Are you emptying the whole tank of water if so you shouldn't you just need to change out 25% of the water when you do a water change. Was your tank cycled? If you emptied the whole tank of water you are putting your tank through cycling all over again which is not too good for your betta. Keep an eye on your water parameters because if your tank is recycling you're gonna get ammonia and nitrite spikes once you get nitrate that is good the level just shouldn't go above 40 in my betta tanks the levels are between 5-10 but 20 is fine. Make sure you test your water parameters in a couple of days with the liquid drops do pwcs as necessary for ammonia and nitrite spikes they should always be 0 but nitrate should not be 0 in a cycled established tank.
 
Last edited:
nynikki

nynikki

"Would you like to play a game?"
Aug 7, 2007
348
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Phoenix
platytetrafan said:
It doesn't sound like fin rot but just keep an eye on the betta for any further changes in the fins. I do have one question why are you rinsing your gravel when you clean the tank? All you need to do is gravel vac scrubbing the algae off the sides is fine. You should have some level of nitrate in your water nitrate level of 20 is fine nitrate level of 0 is not fine. Are you emptying the whole tank of water if so you shouldn't you just need to change out 25% of the water when you do a water change. Was your tank cycled? If you emptied the whole tank of water you are putting your tank through cycling all over again which is not too good for your betta. Keep an eye on your water parameters because if your tank is recycling you're gonna get ammonia and nitrite spikes once you get nitrate that is good the level just shouldn't go above 40 in my betta tanks the levels are between 5-10 but 20 is fine. Make sure you test your water parameters in a couple of days with the liquid drops do pwcs as necessary for ammonia and nitrite spikes they should always be 0 but nitrate should not be 0 in a cycled established tank.
Click to expand...
Yes the tank was cycled. Being so small though the gravel vac is not always that affective. I don't usually rinse it, this was just a first time. I didn't change the filter pad so I'm assuming that there are still beneficial bacteria on/in that. I was actually surprised that it was zero after 3 days, but so was everything else, so if it stays that way - I'll be in good shape. I'll keep an eye on things though - thanks for the advice.
 
kimmisc

kimmisc

is in your closet.
Mar 12, 2007
963
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Florence, SC
I'm sure it's not actually 0. It just hasn't reached 5ppm yet. The intervals are pretty large on nitrate tests. I wouldn't expect 1 betta to produce 5ppm+ in 3 days.
 
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