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ok dispite almost daily water changes (ranging between 20-100%) the ammoina in my tank is still at a steady danger area. Ive added a java fern in hopes of improvement... not so much.

also i'm not allowed a heater (the rents afraid of fire, dont ask) and the tank ranges between 72-76 degrees, i know too cold. any tricks to warm that up??

so add everything up and the poor guys got fin rot, im currently using Maracyn-two meds for the guy, today is his last dose. (im not sure if its working though, and yes i took the filter out so his meds wouldnt get sucked up)

Other then the fin rot he seems happy enough, still eats like a little piggie, is an active swimmer, and flares at the mirror (i covered it so he could recover.)

I wanted to wait till his meds were done before i started adding ammonia treatments, so anyone know what works best?

Letos got a 1.5 gal tank with a carbon filter, and i use tetra aqua betta safe for the tap water i use.

I believe that there are some products that can help neutralize ammonia and convert them into harmless compounds. Lemme do some quick googling....


Got it. Amquel. It seems that most water conditioners do not neutralize the ammonia in water and only dechlorinate and remove chloramine.

Powdered or granular zeolites may also absorb the ammonia, but it does not work with salt water, and if you use a small amount of aquarium salt for the betta like most betta keepers do (it helps to keep off infections and such), you might not want to take the risk.

But this is simple google-research, and I am no expert. The Ultimate Bettas forums may be more helpful, like the PrInc355 said.

That aside, you need to find the cause of all of this ammonia buildup. Considering you have a filter and do frequent water changes, and assuming you cleaned the filter properly before installing it by reading the directions...perhaps you should test the water you've been using pre-treatment, just in case. And if something bad comes up in the tap water, you may have to switch to bottled water (not distilled) temporarily until you find a good solution.


SIF <-----EDIT: Hahaha, the typos.

EDIT #2: Have you also ruled out the possibility of a false positive? Some testers may be inaccurate and such.

visted Ultimate Bettas, and with their help (and you guys) Im happy to say that Leto is not only all better his tail is almost completly grown back. the ammoina is down to .5 which is still a little high for my liking but now that Letos better im gonna try amquel to bring it to zero.

still not sure the sorce tap water came back 0 in the test (tested it before i put the betta stuff in.)

I have a guess where he got the fin rot from, we share nets (my siblings and I) they each have a 1/2 gal no filter and neither have changed their tank in over a month, feeling sorry for the little guys i cleaned the tanks using letos net and such. Only after leto got sick did i look to see that yes red baron (my brothers fish) appears to have fin rot also, though he seems to be healing on his own, with just clean water.

anyway thanks for the help!!