sad fish

Or, just me sad for a fish- I don't know how he feels. My little blue betta doesn't look well at all. His head has gradually been turning white- first it was just the gill plate on one side, then all that side of his face, now nearly his entire head.

His fins are ragged and loosing color.

I have checked his water parameters (nitrates regularly around 10 ppm), raised the temperature in his tank a few degrees, cleaned his filter and am trying to be more meticulous about siphoning the gravel on tank maintenance days. He's started refusing food- won't eat any kind of pellets anymore, only flake, frozen foods or bug bites. Spends most of the day hiding in the plants, just comes out when it's food time.

Sigh. I've had him six months, which means he's probably over a year old, and who knows how long someone else owned him before me, or what he went through before. I thought at first the white on his head was the marbled gene- the black on his fin edges has changed dramatically, after all. But it looks like he has fin rot and is loosing weight. He's been gradually deteriorating for a while, until even my kids noticed.

This will be my last betta. I'm not going to go through the difficulty- extra water changes, stress, worry over a diagnosis- to attempt treatment with medication. Clean, warm water and the best food I have, that's all I can do right now. I just have to decide how long to let him linger into suffering before I decide to euthanize. It's a decision I hate making and don't want to do anymore.