# One sick betta, worried about another



## BullDog (Apr 21, 2010)

One of my bettas is sick, quite possibly dropsy.
Now I'm worried about my other little gal too. I'm pretty careful about cross contamination between the tanks, but I do use the same dirty water bucket for both tanks and clean water bucket for both tanks. Each has their own water change siphon. 
So the one who wasn't sick is my oldest betta, she's outlived all my other bettas. She has a birth defect, one pectoral fin is about half the normal size. For quite a while she also has had swim bladder problems, she swims like her tail is too heavy. I've tried treating it with different cures, but nothing made a difference, so I chalked it up to either another birth defect or possibly damage. Otherwise she's fine, usually swims out to greet me, and eagerly eats up her food. Most of the time I don't see her though, she usually sits in a sunken car decoration on the bottom.
I went to feed her tonight, and didn't see her. Then I noticed the pellets from last night still floating in the tank. I looked all around the tank, didn't see her, and thought the worse... Has she been dead two days and I didn't even notice? So I waved my hand in front of the sunken car, nothing. Tapped on the sunken car, nothing. Then finally I lifted it up, and out she darts, obviously scared out of her wits. Once she had calmed down, she showed no interest in the food, and just swam back to her sunken car.

I did notice that her tank is a bit cooler than usual (75-76F instead of 78-80F). I bumped the heater up ever so slightly, I just have to be a bit careful with it, since it seems to overheat if I turn it too high.

I just started my sick betta on Maracyn 2 (felt like I should try something). I was wondering if I should give my female a round of the Maracyn 2 as well, just in case something transferred between the two tanks, or if it would do more harm than good? I know with most bacterial things the sooner you get them on an antibiotic the better the chance they have of recovering...


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