This morning when interacting closely with my fish- feeding them the weekly pea- I noticed my betta Flash has a small tear on his right side near the tail fin, or maybe a row of missing scales. I looked back through previous photos and don't see it in any early ones, but it's visible in this picture taken a few days ago when I did their regular water change:
So I think it's a relatively new injury. I guess it happened when he was darting around and scraped himself against an edge of the bridge decor, or a plant root? I trimmed away some of the Pothos roots and to help him heal, did a 50% water change today.
I dissolved in a half teaspoon of aquarium salt -to promote healing- and a tenth of an anti-fungal tablet that the package says treats bacterial infection or fin rot too.
I gave Pinkie a 50% water change too, just because it is easier for me to measure the water conditioner by the gallon, and I figure it doesn't hurt him any to get cleaner water. But the medicine and salt only went in the half gallon for Flash. Who seems fine, otherwise. Swimming, eating like normal.
I also put up the visual barrier between the fishbowls. Really, I ought to keep this in place most of the time. While it's delightful to see the fish flare their fins and show off their beautiful colors, they're doing it because they see the other betta as a threat, and some say that can be stressful too often. So I'm leaving the cardboard panels in place all the time now until I see that Flash is healed.
I tried to use my macro setting and get a closeup of the injury. But Flash was very wary of the camera. He can obviously see well. He avoided coming across the glass right in front of the camera and kept displaying and flaring at it, then darting away. This was the best I could get. Definitely looks like a scratch.
Pinkie, on the other hand, is not shy at all and I got an awesome closeup photo of
him. I have noticed now that one of his ventral fins is shorter than the other, and curled. It wasn't always shorter. I feel bad I never noticed what happened to it.
1 comment:
Done more reading- the curling ventral fin is probably due to water hardness. Other people have noticed this with their own fish and when the water was softened, curl went away.
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