Male Betta deaths

[Des]

Hi my name is Des. I live at Caloundra on the Sunshine Coast of Queensland about 120 klms north of Brisbane.

I Bought a couple of Betta females at our local Sunday markets in January & caught the bug. I ended up with 11 females & 5 males. During the cyclones we had a cold spell & I started worrying about the temperature in the tanks the boys were in because I couldn't get small enough heaters (15cm). I went to a few pet shops & found some small plastic fish tanks & decided to float them in the top of the girls tank so the water would warm up for them.

All went well for a while then the boys started hanging with their fins all droopy & their heads at the surface. Their water was clean, I had conditioner & salt in the water & it had been aged for a few days. the girls had the same conditioned water & are fine. The boys don't share the water in the girls tank fortunately because despite treating them with Melafix & (after talking to a girl who used to breed bettas at Aquarama) worming them, we have lost 4 of the 5 males. I took the last 2 to Steve Kiene & he put them in more salt & green liquid & said there was nothing else he could think of that could be done.

We lost 1 of them last night & wracked our brai8ns as to why the males have died but the females are fine. The only common denominator we can come up with is the plastic tanks because the fish came from different places & while they were in the 10 x 10 x 20 glass tanks they were fine.

We now have the worry that they were floating in the girls tank for a few weeks & that despite having 110ltrs of water the contamination may effect them as well i8n the near future.

If anyone can help I'd love to get any information I can . Thanks Des

[Chuckie]

Hi Des, Welcome!

I checked your settings and you should have access elsewhere on the forum. Let me know if you're still having trouble. There are some threads in the Feedback & tech Support forum that might help you with the error message you were getting.

I suspect that the male bettas may have had velvet. Do you still have any? If so, are they droopy as well? DO they look like they're coated in yellow dust if you shine a light on them?

IMO Protozin is the best treatment for velvet (if that is what it is), but multicure/white spot cure should also work.