Violet Veiltails Betta Blog

This is the final Betta Care Guide chapter for a while. I promise!

Your fishy is now swimming happily along in his tank for a while and everything is just peachy. But even with all that hard work, he may still get sick. While prevention is the best medication, it’s even better to be prepared.

First things first: You need a hospital tank. A hospital tank is basically just what it sounds like: A place for you to administer treatments and medications to your fish without compromising the habitat tank. A hospital tank shouldn’t be fancy. A 2 gallon tank with a sponge filter, silk plant, or two, and a thermometer is all you need for a betta. If you have other fish consider getting a 5 or 10 gallon tank instead. You can put a porcelain coffee mug in the tank too if you want to give your betta a place to hide. The hospital tank is meant to be temporary, and the less objects that suck up the medication, the better.



Once you have a good hospital tank set up, you should have a few good general medications on hand. Some of the few I recommend are:

Aquarium Salt - Your fish may be freshwater, but when properly dosed, aquarium salt is one of the best tonics you can use. It boosts your betta’s ability to fight infections and parasites. Buy a small carton of this and keep it handy. You’d be amazing at the wonders it can do.

Melafix/Pimafix/Bettafix - These organic medicines have worked for me in the past, but I think I got lucky. See, Melafix only treats certain kinds of bacteria and fungus. I’ve used it effectively as a treatment for a case of fin rot that Quinn developed in his desktop days. However when dosed with Pimafix for basic wound repair, Melafix/Bettafix works wonderfully. Keep a supply of this nearby.

Anti-Fungal Medication: Keep a bottle of this stuff nearby too. Fungus is a nasty affliction that can bore straight into your fishes body or head, depending on the infected site. Good anti-fungals also promote slime growth to prevent a second infection from taking place.

Ich (White Spot Disease) Cure: This is essential to all aquarium medical supplies. Ich is highly contagious and must be dealt with quickly. Fortunately, ich is fairly easy to combat if you catch it early. A dose of this stuff will kill the parasite when it falls off the fish to breed at the bottom of the tank. The cure usually takes only 24 to 48 hours.

Tetracycline: An all-purpose anti-bacterial, this stuff with fight both internal and external bacterial infections that Melafix may not get.

Epsom Salt: It seems weird, but Epsom salt seems effective in fighting dropsy, a condition that arises from several other diseases, although the condition alone may kill your fish. There are instructions on how to use Epsom salt to combat dropsy on this NippyFish article.

You can see more suggestions for a betta medical kit on this HealthyBetta.com article.