I’m so heartbroken, I’ve had my male betta for half a year. After some time he started developing fin rot, it got really bad but these days he recovered and was regrowing his tail. Now I’ve realized he has started to pinecone. In my lfs they told me it was impossible to cure even tho he’s just starting, and that they did not have any medicine for that. Most of the ones Reddit users recommended me are not available in my country or it has been discontinued (like sera’s baktopur). I’ve managed to find some but it won’t arrive for 3 days at least. I really tried everything and was so in love with my fish. He’s still alive but u don’t know if he will be when the package arrives… for now at least he’s eating which I’ve read is a good sign.
I’m just writing to vent, I feel like there’s nothing I could have done but I know it’s also my fault, even tho I don’t know what happened or what I did wrong. I’m just hoping I somehow can cure him even when they told me just to euthanize them “down the wc”.
Here some pics of my boy, Kirk (I know hahaha) before fin rot and during it (rn his fins are a lil worse but regrowing and ofc pineconing a lil) . I’m sorry my little one I’ll still try…
https://www.reddit.com/gallery/1tbtkab
Posted by Bubbly_Solid_9323
2 Comments
I can completely understand that, my first male betta suffered the same but he happened to already have finrot when I purchased him due to the negligence of the aquarium ( bettas really are neglected) , however I was unable to detect it at an early stage but like in 2 days his fins started rotting , he lived for few months which I was quite surprised he ate well and stuff but unfortunately passed away from the pine cone disease (dropsy) which is really difficult to cure. Ever since then ive always purchased female bettas, they tend to be more active and easy to look after as they are not much susceptible to finrot.
If you want to keep a male betta, you should go for the Plakat koi ones, they have short fins and look somewhat like the females but are easier to maintain
Also, I’m really sorry to hear that, dropsy is a very dangerous illness and every fish keeper’s nightmare
My first betta died of that and I was devastated because I was quite knew to this stuff. Don’t blame yourself, you looked after him well and he is really glad to have you as his owner. You did all you could. The fishes cured from dropsy tend to have a weakened immune system which once again makes them prone to some illness.