(Pics are when he was healthy)
8 months of loving you my boy❤️
I found my boy lifeless on the substrate at 5am this morning…. Absolutely devastated to say the least but I was half expecting it😞
A bit of context:
He’d been battling slow chronic fin rot for months now, since May – I only got him in March so it wasn’t long after bringing him home that he developed the rot:( he had slow deterioration on his bottom fin for 6 whole months but he was acting fine, active and eating, coming to greet me etc. until last week…
I’ve been treating him since May with multiple different meds over the months. None of them worked so I finally bit the bullet and spent an arm and a leg on a small vial of kanaplex (it was £20 for the delivery alone cos I’m in the UK🫣) and thought I’d finally get somewhere with this med… instead he got worse and developed dropsy☹️ the kanaplex was too much on his little organs after the constant previous meds and he just couldn’t deal with it:(
He’d been fighting the dropsy for 8 days and finally couldn’t handle it anymore💔 it was so heartbreaking to see him decline so fast after he’s been holding up strong for so long:(
I have the question of what on earth could I have done differently? How come everything I tried didn’t stop the fin rot? And am I to blame for his decline for constantly medicating him? I was only trying to help him:(
A timeline of my treatments is as follows if it helps:
-
10th May – treated with ‘Interpret’ anti fungus and fin rot meds.
-
29th May – treated with interpret med again and stress coat.
-
21st July – treated with ‘NTLabs’ anti internal bacteria meds.
-
7th Aug – Epsom salt bath.
-
9th Aug – salt bath and treated tank with ‘interpret’ anti fin rot meds.
-
12th Sept – treated with new ‘NTLabs’ anti-ulcer and fin rot meds.
-
19th Sept – second dose.
-
13th Oct – treated with Esha 2000.
-
14th Oct – 3 drops of Esha.
-
15th Oct – last 3 drops of Esha.
-
25th Oct – NTLabs anti-ulcer and fin rot meds.
-
1st Nov – second dose.
-
20th Nov – Treated with Kanaplex.
-
22nd Nov – second dose.
-
24th Nov – last dose of Kanaplex.
-
30th Nov – Vimto developed dropsy. Epsom salt bath and dosed with NTLabs internal bacteria meds.
-
1st-6th Dec – Epsom salt baths every 48 hours.
-
9th Dec – Vimto died:(
By the end, he still had the fin rot. So no matter what it just didn’t budge… what sort of infection could have caused no response from 5 different meds and salt baths too?
Sorry for the long post, I’m just so upset that I’ve tried my absolute hardest to keep this fishy alive and he just had no luck in recovering:((
https://www.reddit.com/gallery/1pim0a3
Posted by AwareInteraction8849
6 Comments
Forgot to mention:
His tank parameters were ALWAYS good, 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, max of 20 nitrate every time I’d test it. Ph was always between 7-7.5, gh was always at 125ppm, so he always had stable parameters other than KH which was always a bit low at 50ppm (which I’m assuming is why ph ranges from 7-7.5 as it did tend to change).
Tank was 24L (6.3 US gal) and his only tank mate (for the last 4 months) was a solo zebra nerite. Temp set to 26°C. Weekly water changes at first that changed to twice a week during treatments.
In terms of medicating him, I would treat him and leave around 3weeks between that and trying a new med. But I think ultimately I just over did it with the meds:(
That’s several months of medicating. It was a matter of time before it becomes too much for his body to handle… Most, if not all medications are really hard on fish. It’s important to know when to just let go.
Had 6 bettas over the years. One thing i learned, no matter how hard u medicate, keep the parameters clean, or even try, they come and go.
I am so sorry to hear about the loss of your boy. It is clear from your post and timeline that you loved him deeply and tried incredibly hard to save him. Please do not blame yourself for trying to help; your intentions were good, and fish keeping can be complex.
I am a veterinarian so I do have a lot of experience medicating animals, it is highly improbable that the final dose of Kanaplex directly killed him, especially given that it is a common and usually safe antibiotic. The more critical concern appears to be the prolonged and intensive course of treatments over many months. Chronic fin rot and subsequent development of dropsy suggest a fundamental underlying issue, likely a compromised immune system due to persistent environmental stressors (such as water quality fluctuations, which are often the root cause of chronic fin rot) or, less commonly, an inherent weakness. The sheer volume of medications including various anti-fungals, anti-bacterials, salts, and multiple doses of different agents administered placed a tremendous cumulative stress on his internal organs, which are responsible for processing and eliminating these chemicals. Sadly, in a fish already weakened by chronic illness and this level of therapeutic intervention, the sudden appearance of dropsy (a symptom of organ failure, often due to fluid retention) strongly indicates that his systems simply became overwhelmed and failed to cope, irrespective of the final medication used.
Please, be kind to yourself. You went above and beyond, navigating a very complicated and often confusing journey of aquatic treatments with the best of intentions. Sometimes, despite our absolute best efforts and endless searching for answers, the tiny, delicate systems of these creatures simply cannot recover from a persistent illness. The most important thing to take away from this experience is that your actions were driven purely by love, and this will now serve as a powerful, albeit painful, learning curve that will make you an even more informed and sensitive caregiver in the future. You gave him eight months of love and devotion, and that is what truly matters.
Honestly, I don’t think you did anything wrong. You did your best on a species that is known to be incredibly hard to treat! I’m so proud of you for giving it your all <3
Even as a human being, there are problems that can’t be fixed for me. They can be helped, slowed down, etc… but they are going to get me one day if something else doesn’t. We have way more information on human health than fish.
The only other thing I would consider is water parameters and what changes were going on with the water.
RIP Vimto <3
It didn’t kill him. He had been sick *and* on medication for 8 whole months, which is way too long for most humans to be on medications without actual medical care and definitely too long for a fish with tiny organs. It’s a good time to break the tank down, clean absolutely everything, and start over from scratch with something completely different (maybe shrimp or snails) when you’re ready.