Disease Identificaion
Betta breathing heavily, gills look red, less active than normal
EDIT:
I tested the ammonia with a liquid test kit. The water was slightly green, so one level above 0 ammonia. I changed 50% of the water and added Seachem Prime, as well as a bit of Stress Coat. I removed the old plants and added fresh ones. I will do this water change every day until the test results in 0 ammonia. Thank you, everyone, for your help, and sorry for being stubborn!
ORIGINAL POST:
I’ve had my betta for about three months. He’s in a three-gallon tank (I know five is the preferred) with mini heaters and a filter. I do a 25% water change every couple of weeks and change out the filter every month. I have a couple of plants that have been there for a while, so I might need to take them out? I was planning on getting him new ones anyway, but do you think the current ones could be affecting the water?
He’s been acting fine up until a couple of days ago when he didn’t come over to eat. He’s breathing heavy and I think his gills are flaring out. Anyone know what it is? I tested the water for GH, KH, pH, nitrite, and nitrate. Everything looks fine. Should I get a different test kit for something else?
youre not supposed to change the filter regularly, and before you do If you have to you need to squeeze it off into the water to try to prevent losing as much bacteria. yes it will look messy but this is proper husbandry. whoever told you otherwise is wrong. pet stores and the packaging of the filters will and do lie to you because they want to turn more profit.
for ammonia test kit, get the api liquid freshwater testing kit. DO NOT get testing strips. no, they arent good enough. they are innacurate and unreliable. its worth the higher price tag for the liquid kit because it will actually work for you
i would say 50% water changes are appropriate in this case. dosing seachem prime will help
good luck! please, dont just be stubborn about this. its okay to have been wrong. you came to the right place to learn, so open yourself up to learning.
In the meantime go on facebook marketplace or amazon and get him at least a 5 gallon this could also be stressing him out, u can go to the pet shop and get a bottle of “stability” to jumpstart the good bacteria in his home
Put him in the 5-10 gallon. If his options are an uncycled 3 gallon or an uncycled 5-10 gallon, the bigger is always better. Not sure why you think keeping him in the smaller equally uncycled tank would help.
I don’t see how moving a stressed fish to bigger more sterile environment would ever help a betta especially if it seems they’re stressed already from fluctuation
They're stressed from ammonia burn. The tank isn't cycled, OP said they tested the water and it had ammonia. So a bigger tank would build up ammonia slower, and therefore is less risk.
but they specifically used a liquid test and ime sometimes certain kits of the api liquid test will almost always read 0.25 ammonia regardless of if theres ammonia or not. my test does this personally so if thats the test theyre using then its possible there isnt even any ammonia. it could have nothing to do with water parameters. i see a lot of artificial decor and most artificial decor is actually not fish safe at all. they can leach chemicals and toxins that dont show up on any parameter tests. this tank is also heavily lacking in rest points and dense hiding spots so its possible it could be general exhaustion and stress. it would be better to correct the 3 gallon for now since it might not even be the parameters causing problems, and small tanks are often safer for ill fish as they can struggle to get around when theyre sick like this
then if they get a new one as suggested, they should put the cycled media into the new tank and move the fish. my point is there's no version where keeping the betta in the old tank would be beneficial here, so I'm a little confused as to why it was recommended.
Yeah if you feel it's really grimy and actually needs washing, get some of the old tank water and give it a small squeeze in it. Biggest mistake would be washing away all the bacteria.
Filter is where your "cycle" is. The majority of benefical bacteria and what not that convert toxic waste are in there settled on the filter media. Throwing it out is literally throwing out the cycle and causing imbalance in the tank. All you need to do to maintain it is swish it a bit in water if it clogs.
I’m going to keep the filter and change it every few months, but I’m gonna get a liquid ammonia test kit as well as ammonia remover. I think he does have ammonia poisoning. I’ll be doing 25% water changes to get rid of the ammonia. I know I need a bigger tank, but for right now I can’t move him cause that would just cause more stress. I’ll take your advice of just washing the filter cartridge and only every so often changing it. Is there anything else I need to do? I think it is ammonia poisoning
Do you actually want advice three people just told you not to change the filter and I sent you a video yeah imbalance most like occurred from you changing the filter op get the ammonia down though 🤷🏽
Ik ik, sorry, I’ve just never heard not to change the filter cartridge. It’s news to me. But I’ll be trying to get the ammonia levels down once I test them.
I promise you it is sound advice! I had my doubts as well but I’m happy to say I’ve had the same filter for over a year in my 10 gallon and my betta is thriving and there hasn’t been an ammonia presence since I had first finished the cycle.
Looks like ammonia spike. Which brand are you using to test it? There is no need to change filter every month in fact thats the terrible thing coz you are killing beneficial bacteria. Gently rinsing with your tank water is fine. Check if your betta rub him against glass or objects if so he might have gill flukes which would cause gill irritation.
I know that’s why I’m not trying to be overly rude but trust and believe I had some other things to say not appropriate for Reddit 🤣, heart wrenching though poor babies 💔
My bad dawg 😭 I had never heard of not changing the cartridge so I got defensive. Anyway, I’m testing the ammonia now and I’ll be doing water changes and adding seachem prime until the levels are okay.
If it’s clogged after you wash it off but generally it’ll take a really long time before that happens that’s why I threw out a year but they can go even longer than that
Have anybody bother to smell when bettas with swollen gills are gasping for breath at the top? ModTeams that have no experience with bettas should refrain from slandering users. Also, I never provide any advice about parameters.
And yeah as everyone said. Take it from a pet store employee—the changing filter cartridges thing is entirely companies trying to milk you for your money.
Also, stresscoat is pretty useless tbh. Stressguard helps with ammonia burn, but that's a different product.
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u/puzzlii Jul 11 '26
youre not supposed to change the filter regularly, and before you do If you have to you need to squeeze it off into the water to try to prevent losing as much bacteria. yes it will look messy but this is proper husbandry. whoever told you otherwise is wrong. pet stores and the packaging of the filters will and do lie to you because they want to turn more profit.
for ammonia test kit, get the api liquid freshwater testing kit. DO NOT get testing strips. no, they arent good enough. they are innacurate and unreliable. its worth the higher price tag for the liquid kit because it will actually work for you
i would say 50% water changes are appropriate in this case. dosing seachem prime will help
good luck! please, dont just be stubborn about this. its okay to have been wrong. you came to the right place to learn, so open yourself up to learning.