The 5 most important fish diseases of Betta, fighting fish

Hello, dear acurist, Dear Betta lover. Yes. Today I made a special video for you about diseases. The most common diseases for betta fish, the Betta fighting fish, which is a very popular fish. And I received from several breeders or hobbyists the request to make this video to explain you. Yeah, what can be the diseases that are so common and what can we do about it? And I will show you my videos, my findings, my suggestions for treatment. And I hope this video helps many of you that are dealing in the hobby or in the aquarium industry that are crazy about Betas. And I give you my information as a consultant working in the aquarium, ornamental aquarium fish industry. And I may be wrong, but with my 45 years of experience, it's highly unlikely. Still, biology, science is not perfect and should always be challenged. So if you have any specific questions or remarks, please bring them forward and I hope to discuss that with you and we can evaluate both our findings because sometimes diseases are very special and particularly the treatments. So Here is the PowerPoint I will share with you about the most common diseases of Betta fish. I also make subtitles for you. I try to adapt them to your language in Dutch, France, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Hindi. I do try to do different ones to be translated so you can have it in your language. But I speak English because about 90% of my followers are English speaking or understand English. The five most common diseases of betta fish are, number one fish, tuberculosis or mycobacterium velvet disease or oodinium pisinodinium, internal bacterial infection, mostly due to the fish food columnaris bacterial infection and white spot infection or ich ichthyophetherius. And I will go in detail about the five most common diseases of the Betta. Here we see a group of Bettas with Mycobacterium. Why? Because I diagnosed them and I used a microscope and you can see different symptoms. Some fish, I will repeat it again, are swollen. Some are skinny. The problem is they were wasting away and every week a few were dying. They were swimming, every not eating and eventually died. Here I have another video from another Betta that was suffering from Mycobacterium bacterial infection. You see how badly the fins are. The fish is decaying. The other fish getting aggressive to him because usually what happens with betta, these are all females here. Well, they attack each other and they're dying. They are kind of cannibalistic. So they're, they're becoming real fighting fish. But you see the symptoms are very different. And this fish looked okay, but look, he's becoming slow not so actively swimming as the others, but most of them had Mycobacterium. And some have it not so heavily, so they will do better. And some have it very advanced. And that's the ones who will die and get other bacterial infections that will kill them. Here, different symptoms you see on the photographs. Swollen eye. Here, the bad finch, the patches, the swollen eye, exophthalmia, a cloudy eye. You can see the bad finish, the bad formation. Here we see the damaged finch hanging at the surface. So many different symptoms. There's not one clear symptom I can define to say, well, this is Mycobacterium. But what is clear is what you find in the organs. And that is most of the cases, tubercles, look this encapsulated bacteria in the liver, in the spleen or in the kidneys. That is what you find typically when you do a microscopic examination. The tubercles in the organs. Well, this is a clear sign or symptom for Mycobacterium. But a laboratory can confirm this because you need to do a laboratory technology to define that this is Mycobacterium. And treatments have little success. Yes, because when the organs are so badly damaged, like I showed you in the previous slide, but in the beginning stage, when fish have mild infection, they can survive a long time. And the medication can have success because a lot of fish getting other secondary infections due to the big their weak body due to the organs damaged by the mycobacterium. And some try antibiotics like erythromycin, rifampicin, oxytocin. Well, ask your veterinarian and see also in my books. I will give you the link below where you can get the book where you can get details of the medications. In general, it's prevention, prevention is better than cure. And usually the source is the breeder and the motor fish. The, the mother fish passes on the Mycobacterium bacteria through the gonads, through the eggs. So the babies are born with the Mycobacterium. And also the other source is the fish food that is contaminated with Mycobacterium. And we find that quite often in red mosquito larvae, bloodworms, the heavily infected fish that are suffering, they should be put gently asleep. For example, you can use narcomorpus from cardiomy. And for the other fish that are still doing well, you can help the immune system so they can defend themselves against infections or other infections and build up some immunity and its self defense with a pro and prebiotics in the fish food. And I Of course, I recommend my Dr. Basler buy fish food forte that helps the fish to repair themselves. Be aware of the risk of tank granuloma, which is a zoonosis. So make sure when you have this disease to disinfect well your hands or if you have wounds to clean them properly. Disinfection of the aquarium has only sense when the origin is avoided. That's the thing. If you keep on bringing in mycobacterium, it's the use of disinfecting as a breeder. It's of course mostly important to think about that. So this was below about fish tuberculosis and in detail. I have made a special video on fish tuberculosis in four languages. I'll show you the link below in the description. The other disease number two, velvet disease or Oodinium. Very difficult to see parasites mostly during the gills. Some are external. We could maybe see some grayish pattern here on this PETA. Do you see it? Well, sorry, maybe I'm too old. I'm 69 years old and my eyes are not so clear. But it's very difficult for me to see that clear. Those little dusty fine spots as Odinium should be same for this fish. This fish was loaded with Odinium and you can see some turbidity of the skin. So cloud it is like some little pepper spray. You look at. The fish becomes very skinny. They're wasting away. They're going to die because of the damage incurred by the parasites. Here you see it again in detail. You see fine dusty layer on the fish. I tell you it's difficult to see. That's why it's so often misdiagnosed. Here we see it again. If you take a closer look to this picture in detail, go closer to the screen, you might see the fine dusty spots all smeared over the skin of this betta here. You see it on another kind of fish, but that's how you can identify it through on the fins, the fine pepper dusty like spots. Here it's on the tail of a kissing groundie. And here we see it in a microscopic observation. Yes, the microscope helps us to define that this is Oodinium and that we can do something about it with a treatment. Oodinium is on the skin and in the gills causing damage. And then bacteria can invade and can kill the fish. So that's a parasitic infection. Treatments. Well, first of all what to do is a water change as soon as possible. You eliminate parasites, you're giving fresh water and you're adding 5 grams of sea salt per liter. The parasite does not like salt. Add copper sulfate solution, see my book or ask your aquarium shop and do a long term treatment. At least seven days. And that medication must be repeated to be effective. Because of the cycle of the parasite, sometimes there is a secondary bacterial infection that evolves due to the weakening of the fish and the damage caused by the parasites. The bacterial infection needs to be treated without delay. Do not postpone that antibacterial treatment because the damage of the bacterial infection kills the fish. Usually the badly damaged fish. That's what the fish is dying from. Maybe raise the temperature 28 degrees to speed up the cycle of the parasite and give a faster effective treatment. But it gives also more risk for stimulating a bacterial infection. So be aware when you do that. Beta with bacterial infections. See the lesions? This is different than Mycobacterium. We didn't find Mycobacterium. We found. Look this. White lesions. Necrotic lesions. Some wounds can be different colors, can be reddish. Look at this here. Big ulcers. I've seen it quite often reported. That's why I call it disease number three. You see here the decayed body, the necrotic reddish bleeding patches of the fish. It's typical for bacteria, can be a parasite. Also be careful. Do an examination of the skin. That can help. And what does the bacterial infection do? Well, it damages tissues here. Look at the gills. The gills are having a very bad infection here and they are very badly damaged. So the fish will die like humans can die from pneumonia. This is Gillmonia, you can say, and the fish will die from it. And also the organs internally are infected with bacteria. This microscopic examination can tell you that. What can you do? Well, the first action you can take is do a water change. Administer antibacterial medication. Ask your pet shop or your veterinarian. And the sooner you start treating, the better the results. And a laboratory can help you determine the bacteria and they can check for you what is the best antibiotic to use, particularly for breeders. Very important to have that final result and try to look for the cause. In most cases it's food that is polluted with bacteria. Frozen or live food can have this kind of pathogenic influence. Dirty water conditions are a serious cause. And stress number four, the columaris bacterial infection. See this better. With all the white necrotic tissue, the damaged tails rotten away. And even now, while his friend is eating on them, see the other fish in the back also dying. 3, 4, 5 dead fish. I will show the video again. Many fish are dying quickly. This is typical Columnaris wide necrotic Lesions, quick losses of fish overnight, high mortality. Well, that's the problem with Columnaris. Very nasty, quickly evolving disease, particularly in tropical waters. And you see those typical white necrotic lesions like here, the saddlebag syndrome. And the white nose, white mouth of the Betta. Here another saddlebag white wound. That's typical. The necrotic white lesions of Columnaris infection. A microscope can help you to define because Columnaris has typical colonies sitting here on the scales and here at the edge you see like a cubifix, like groups of colonies of bacteria Columnaris. How to treat? Do a big water change, lower the temperature. Because Columnaris hates temperatures below 23 degrees. Be careful. Sometimes Betta don't like it. You can have other risk. But anyway you're going to treat together with that lower temperature. Adding sea salt, 3 to 5 grams per liter. Add antibiotics such as neomycin or androfloxacine. See my book and certainly ask your veterinarian to get avoid overcrowding and stress because that stimulates the growth of Columnaris. And check what could have been the cause. What did you do? What happened before? Lack of water changes, too high temperatures, etc. And last but not least, the white spot infection. Ick. Nice to see on this Betta. Well, nice. It's a terrible disease. It's also on the skin, it's in the gills. It's damaging the fish and the fish will die. But sometimes the ick is not always easy to see. Here in these nice colored bettas, this fish here in the middle, you see it's fraying the fish. It had many white spots. Why it's difficult to see because it doesn't clearly show in this white colored fish. So you have to be careful. You have to check very close with your eyes and particularly microscope can help. And here we did the scraping of the skin from a fish. You see those parasites moving. They're dark parasites. They look white on the under the skin of the fish. Underneath the mucous layer, you see the white spots moving. Easy to diagnose with a microscope. That's why I always recommend when you have serious problems, try to take skin scrapings. It helps you to define white spot or oodinium or like columnaris, all diseases you can define. And there are many good medications available in the market. An intercorm slop to treat ache note the treatment must last at least seven days because the parasite has a cycle. I explain more in my videos on ICH below about this kind of problem with ich. How to treat. Sometimes secondary bacterial infections occur due to the damage caused by the parasites. So then you should apply an antibiotic or antibacterial medication as soon as possible and check also what could have been the cause. Usually it's a sudden drop in temperature or windows that are left open or a door with cold draft or a water change with too cold water, etc. I explained that in my video on white spot disease. See below the link for that special video which I have in four languages available for you. Of course my book on fish diseases also has a lot of details on diseases of Betta and photographs of Bettas. Try to get it. I have the link below to get a book and try to subscribe to my videos. I appreciate your watching this because it will teach you a lesson how to take care of Bettas. I have a playlist specifically on YouTube about gourmets and Bettas. Here is the link but I will show you also below. So I hope this helped you to understand the most important beta diseases and that you as a fish hobbyist and particularly those who love to keep beta, are more capable of preventing and controlling diseases of the Bettas. Thank you for watching.