I've gotten great advice from this forum for my community tank, so now I'm coming about my poor neglected betta. I have for years ignored the good care advice and gotten lucky, and kept my boys in uncycled bowls with no issues. But... my lovely twin tale guy is having some fin rot issues. Its likely been there for a while but mild. Then I broke my thermometer right around the time I took pity on him and moved him up to a larger bowl, and since I was going out of town I erred on the side of too cool rather than cooked fish. Then the vacation feeder I could find was a different brand and it clearly negatively impacted the water quality. Now the fin rot is impossible to miss, I'd say moderate. He kinda looks a bit crown tail-ish but still has sizable fins. Behavior still mostly normal (slightly less active but not much), appetite down slightly. My understanding from my reasearch is that the only long term treatment is better living conditions, and the plan is to move him to a 3.5 gallon filtered tank. I know this is minimal but it is what my budget and space can allow.
Based on (don't hate me) pet store advice and web research I'm currently keeping him in his 1 gal bowl for now and doing a 5-7 day salt treatment, where I'm using the concentration on the API freshwater salt package and exchanging 1/4 of the water in his bowl with 1/4 treated and API salted water daily for 5-7 days. The pet store guy thought it best to transition to the larger filtered tank AFTER the salt treatment, and since that's also extremely convenient for getting all the stuff I need for the tank, I'm going with it. What I realize I didn't get explained well was how to best handle the transition after the 5-7 days. I don't know if I need to taper off the salt, just STOP the salt, or (as some sites seem to suggest) just keep on with some salt in his water longer term. I was thinking of just adding his existing (by then quite salty) water to the new tank and topping off with plain unsalted treated water with bacteria starter and hoping for the best. I sadly don't have space and don't want to keep him in the bowl for the time to properly cycle the tank. Is this a good enough solution to minimize his stress in transition? Any other suggestions that don't require dramatically more space than I have in a small office?
Based on (don't hate me) pet store advice and web research I'm currently keeping him in his 1 gal bowl for now and doing a 5-7 day salt treatment, where I'm using the concentration on the API freshwater salt package and exchanging 1/4 of the water in his bowl with 1/4 treated and API salted water daily for 5-7 days. The pet store guy thought it best to transition to the larger filtered tank AFTER the salt treatment, and since that's also extremely convenient for getting all the stuff I need for the tank, I'm going with it. What I realize I didn't get explained well was how to best handle the transition after the 5-7 days. I don't know if I need to taper off the salt, just STOP the salt, or (as some sites seem to suggest) just keep on with some salt in his water longer term. I was thinking of just adding his existing (by then quite salty) water to the new tank and topping off with plain unsalted treated water with bacteria starter and hoping for the best. I sadly don't have space and don't want to keep him in the bowl for the time to properly cycle the tank. Is this a good enough solution to minimize his stress in transition? Any other suggestions that don't require dramatically more space than I have in a small office?
