ugh, as soon as i think i'm ok...... i woke up this morning to find Scarlett with patches of fungus all over him. I took him out immediately and put him in some conditioned water and added a treatment of bettamax. Any other suggestions to quickly solve fungus? this stuff grows like crazy!!! I recently did a water change on his tank and added salt as a precautionary measure. He showed signs of a few spots of fungus on his tail when i did a water change last time too. i added bettamax and he was fine. Now he's very pale and not moving and the fungus is on his body, gill and tail. Is this the result of stress from water changes??

I had good luck using Fungus Eliminator by Jungle this past week when one of my bettas lost a chunk off of his tail.

It seemed to work for me, so it would be worth a try.

Sorry to hear you are having trouble. I don't know about water changes being stressful. Maybe some of the others will have some ideas about that.

sorry to hear about your betta.
Do you have melaxfix around?
If so you might want to put alittle in his Jar/Tank until
you do get the Fungus Eliminator by Jungle.
It helped me with my bettas fungus.
(melaxfix)

fungus grows fast? the so-called fungus on mr. george is just on his gill plates.....it is grey lumps and is almost metallic. is this fungus for sure? a few weeks ago he had ich so i put in some ich solution, and now he has fungus....i also tried salt...it's been a few weeks and nothing has happened. the fungus is not getting worse or better.

Salt doesn't help,it only slows down the
grouth of fungus.
The only fungus i saw was a fluffy looking white?

fishiegirl,
Is it possible that the marks on mr. george's gill plates could be natural colouration? I have one betta that has light splotches on his gill plates even though he is blue and yellow.

Im thinking that it is Natural my self
my betta has some silver looking scales under his mouth
area.

fishiegirl,

i dont mean to butt-in on this thread but, ive got a betta that has those whitish lumps on his head (right between his eyes). since it hasnt spread or changed at all in the past few months, im beginning to believe that they are somewhat natural. maybe scar tissue or something like that.

martinez,

when i woke-up this morning i noticed that one of my plants had fungus growing on it from the base of the stems. i cleaned it up a little and pulled the offending branches out. should i be worried about it spreading to my fish?

i really have no idea, toothless. i've never had that happen, since I have all fake plants. Sadly, Scarlett was dead when I got hom from work. I had him in a bettamax treatment to stop the rapid growth of fungus, but when i came home he was lifeless at the bottom of the bowl. I cried- it was so sad. He was so beautiful and used to come to the top of the water to "greet" me when i called his name. Since then, I took out the divider in the 5 1/2 gallon tank and his buddy, nolie, now has free swim of the tank and seems to like it. i noticed a spot of fungus on nolie and immediately put in junle fungus elim. and it seemed to help. i don't see the spot anymore.

toothless,
I am not sure about this, but I would think it would be a different fungal agent affecting the plants than what would affect the fish.

You did what I would do, and cleaned the plant up. If you see fungus on the plant stems, remove any soft portions, and replant. If you are really worried, or the fungus continues, you could do a 19 parts water, 1 part bleach dip. Leave the plant in for no more than 2 minutes, and rinse very well in clean water. You can add a dechlorinator to the water to be really sure

i've always wondered why doesn't the bleach kill the plant?? and why when you're cleaning a tank do you use bleach instead of soap? does soap linger and bleach doesn't? bleach just seems so much more harsh than soap. and also how much should you rinse the plant/tank to know that the bleach is completely off?

This is an interesting thread, recently my dojo loach had what appeared to be fungus on this tail fin. A huge white tufty mass on his fin-- and I could see his fin had been damaged underneath it. I did a big water change and added some salt and it was gone the next morning.

Now, I keep reading that salt won't cure fungus. That you need specific anti-fungal treatments.

In my reading I read that a parasite called Epistylis can be mistaken for fungus and can be treated with salt.

I also read that columnaris, a bacterial infection (cotton mouth, cotton-wool, fin and tail rot) can be mistaken for fungus.

I also read that damage from a bacterial infection is jagged and damage from a fungal infection is even. Don Juan's damage was even-- however I've also read that fungus can be secondary to a bacterial infection-- and that salt and good water can get rid of a mild bacterial infection.

Basically, I'm at a loss as to what Don Juan *actually* had and as he's active and eating and it seems his tail is healing, I'm not sure I'll ever know. Especially because none of the other fish have any signs of it and it's not present in the tank.

--Sarah

Chlorine bleach dissipates after around 24 hours, so in that way it is different from soap. Soap residue would remain, whereas after 24 hours any residue from the bleach would be harmless.
I rinse my plants until I can't smell the bleach anymore. To be on the safe side, I add a dechlorinator to the final rinse water

aaahhhhhhhh dechlorinator!! DUHHH lolol

here's the answer to the bacteria/fungus questions
http://www.aquamaniacs.net/flex.html
i posted this somewhere else, but it's great. it explains the mistaken identity of this bacterial infection. AND so far, has helped me save one of my female bettas. enjoy

That's an excellent page.

Though I'm still stuck in my dilemma. The white stuff on Don Juan's tail looked like hundreds of individual tiny rods sticking out of his tail, and none of the other fish seem affected-- though I am seeing thin white poo from one of the fish.

I'm thinking I need to treat the tank with antibiotics. *sigh*

--Sarah

have you considered the possibility of parasites? or does it look more like grains of salt? grains of salt is ich and can be treated with commerical medications- i dislike using salt to treat ich, because it can prolong it etc.

It was definitely not white spots, it was more like white threads, and it was growing off the back of his tail in all directions, a perfect little sphere... oh! it looked *exactly* like a dandelion only softer and at the top it didn't fray out, it just went straight.

I did consider that it could be a parasite and I read that Epistylis (sp?) could be mistaken for fungus, but that the parasite is rare...

Whatever it was was gone with 1 tbsp of salt per 5 gallons.

*sigh*

--Sarah

nice! Good, i'm glad it's gone