What is this on my betta's face?

One more thing... over the past couple months, he's taken to tail biting. But, after the recent stress of the camera and the water change (which he's never been good with, but never this bad!), today his tail looks like below. I don't think it looks like fin rot - looks more like he went at it again, yes? Or just big tears? If the latter, from what?? Is this somehow part of whatever else is wrong with him? He's not catching it on anything in the tank - all my betta tanks are carefully made betta-safe. :confused:

7c300860.jpg
 
Lord he's beautiful! Do you have any full view shots of him. Don't stress him any more, I mean maybe any pics before all this commotion.

This photo is not as crisp as your other fantastic shots; I'm sure he was trying to get away from the all seeing eye, lol, but I don't see obvious signs of finrot.

I don't have any experience in keeping Bettas, is tail bitting a common occurance among Bettas? Is it a stress related thing, do you think?

This stupid laptop is running so slowly, the text I'm typing is about four keystrokes behind as I go. Irritating.

How do the lesions look this evening, and how is he acting?
 
I know she's got at least one full-view shot, and he certainly is a stunner! (She has very good taste in bettas, the 2 she sent me a while back are gorgeous too :D)

And yes, tail biting is veeeery annoyingly common in bettas with long fins. 3 of my 4 males do it. I think it's like a nervous habit.
 
The photo is a little blurry, so maybe that's it, but do the areas I have circled look like white edges as in finrot?


Betta VT with fins torn circled.jpg


Other that those circled areas that are unclear to me, I don't see obvious finrot.

Betta VT with fins torn circled.jpg
 
Paperdragon: ;-D Thanks!!

Mel... as to your circled areas, the bottom one is definitely not finrot. His fins are salmon-pink, edged in gray - that, I think, is what you are seeing. They are also (now) sorta "curly" at the edges, been that way for months now - hard to explain but supposedly has to do with my very hard water. The top circle - I dunno. hope not. God - don't need one more problem on this poor guy.

And yeah - tailbiting is mostly done out of boredom or stress.

And sure, from this summer, at the peak of health, here's Buster:
buster_july09.jpg
 
:) Thanks so much. He's real sweet too -- very passive. Totally neurotic, but very passive. (I had, at one point over the summer, 2 Nerite snails in with him. He never bothered them at all, but having something else in the tank with him was something he just couldn't deal with. So he took it out on himself. Shredded his tail and dorsal. And the habit began. Now I can't get him to stop. Once I start seeing new growth, something else will happen that causes him to rip it up again.) Amazing to me to look at him in that pic just above, and then look at him now. :( He's all raggedy and unhappy looking. Don't even know what to do for him.
 
Mel - just realized that I didn't answer your questions about him. He's acting the same - basically normal for him. Eating like a champ, thankfully. Comes right to the front when he thinks there's a chance at food, then, when I feed him, goes right after it - you know, on the hunt. (Talking here about pellets, but he hunts them anyhow!) The things on his face... I dunno. Despite how they look in those close ups, they're really pretty small, so I can't really see them well with just my eye. I need the camera's help and I need to give him a bit of a rest from it. They're not overwhelmingly worse, that I can tell you!
 
Well.... if it's HITH it's not very advanced, other than that one lesion on the right side.

OK, since he's eating well and still has a good appetite, I would go ahead and get the Metro. I would hold off for a day on the food, maybe two, to get him pretty hungry, and then mix up the Metro and start the treatment as detailed in the excerpts that I copied and pasted in the earlier post, here it is again:

"Since the disease is internal it is necessary to medicate internally. The easiest way to do this is to mix 1% metronidazole in fish food (25g food for one 250mg metronidazole) and feed it to the fish. Feeding sparsely before feeding the medicated food can help guarantee that the fish eats the medicated food. It is also recommended to medicate the water as well by adding 12 mg metronidazole per litre aquarium water to make the treatment more effective. Repeat the water treatment every other day until you have treated the water three times."

I would get Furan 2 and start him on that at the same time you start the Metro. I would say hold off on it, but he definitely has indications that the lesion on the right side is infected.
 
Okay. In doing a bit of looking online (just to give me an idea what I'm looking for in the store tomorrow), it looks like one can get metronidazole by itself in crystal form, or there's an anti-parasite medicated food out there, but it has more than just that in it - it has metronidazole, praziquantel, and levamisole in it. I don't want this, right?

Also, I understand the metronidazole won't kill my biological filter, but my guess is that the Furan will?
 
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