remember how i rehomed my betta fish sonic to my best friend Zelda i never thought he'd be
featured on this channel again because he hates the camera but then he got sick like really sick
and this is like a worst nightmare for me because Zelda trusted me to be her mentor through this
whole getting a new betta fish process you know i gave her the exact shopping list of what to buy
i personally flew more than 1500 miles to deliver her my own healthy betta fish and i
set up everything for her taught her how to do water changes like what more could you ask for
well everything was fine for about two and a half months and then at the end of
January i get this text saying, "Hey so i found Gill (formerly known as Sonic)
with this gray spot on his head and he's laying on leaves and hiding all the time what do i do?"
here we go like the thing that every fish keeper dreads
so let's go through all the basic troubleshooting steps what are your water parameters she tells me
they are zero ppm ammonia nitrite and nitrate the temperature is 80°F there's no chlorine she's
using a sponge filter so it's slow gentle flow there's no sharp objects and no tank mates either
so i go okay well let's do a 33% water change and we'll start him off at a level two dosage of salt
which is approximately one tablespoon of aquarium salt for every two gallons of
water I'll put a link in the description for a article of how i treat with salt one week later
more of his body is turning gray his swimming is kind of erratic but his appetite is normal
um however he is no longer running away from the camera which is very abnormal for him so i say
okay if the gray patches are a fungal infection let's go ahead and increase to level three
salt concentration which is one tablespoon of aquarium salt for every one gallon of water
but since his deportment is just deteriorating so rapidly i went ahead and started him on one round
of erythromycin which is a very broad spectrum antibiotic so luckily when i had visited her
i had left her this kind of first aid medical kit that had a couple packets of Maracyn in it
by week three Gill's fins are completely ratty with fin rot and he was basically
motionless all day so when Zelda moved the tank to check on him he freaked out and
now is hanging upside down which is kind of like the death spiral for fish i don't know
what's going on you know at this point he's gone through several rounds of the antibiotic he's
still on level three salt concentration i mean why isn't it killing it unless it's like a viral
infection of some sort I'm really confused and at this point i just don't think he's gonna make it
Gill hangs on and about five weeks later I'm at the airport in the cell phone lot waiting to pick
up my parents and I'm on the phone with Zelda when all of a sudden God brought to mind this random
Aquarium Co-Op podcast i had listened to a long time ago and i just go, "Hey Zelda
has this ever happened to you where you know when you touch the aquarium water it
shocked you?" she immediately walks over puts her hand in the tank and goes i just got shot
we're both dumbstruck so i go well maybe it was a fluke so try again in a few hours yeah one hour
later same thing she goes over and gets zapped so there are three sources of electricity going into
this tank number one the LED light not touching the water number two is a sponge filter but the
air pump is outside of the tank number three the heater as soon as Zelda unplugs the heater
nose up it is a she mailed it to me Fluval M series silver colored 50 watt here now i
personally own this heater and have the 150 watt version in my 20 gallon tank never had an issue
but to be fair Zelda did buy this heater back in 2020 right when the pandemic started because
that's when i was originally supposed to visit her and then we didn't install it until now so
the closest PetSmart has a Top Fin adjustable heater but it's like rated two out of five stars
so i told her to go on amazon.com and get an Eheim true temp 50 watt heater which unfortunately is
going to take two days to get here uh so we don't have any choice she leaves the heater
unplugged and wraps that tank with towels the temperature does start dipping down to the mid
70s which normally i wouldn't really worry about for two days because you know
betta fish gets shipped all the time across the country and overseas but Gill is very very weak
praise the Lord the heater came in one day and it arrived at 8:30 a.m. in the morning and so
we got set up with the new heater we're good to go by week six Zelda is happy to report that the
new heater is not zapping the white and grey spots have almost all disappeared and there's
new fin growth already i mean basically his activity level behavior appetite they've all
returned to normal and he is actually running away from the camera again yay
now you may be wondering how in the world did Zelda never get shocked was she never
touching the water when she did water changes well she was doing water changes but she was following
my instructions to a T, which are to what unplug everything before you start the
water change apparently the stray electricity quickly dissipated and she never felt a thing
so what's the moral of story well i don't care how long you've been keeping fish
there is always more to learn or maybe things that you have forgotten so get help from other
hobbyists i constantly get requests whether in my email or my comments section asking for help and
unfortunately i don't have time to address them all i mean it took me like five weeks
to figure out what was going on with poor Gill right so that's why i would always route people
to the Aquarium Co-Op forum which link right here because then you can post like pictures and video
and then lots of fish keepers can put their minds together to help you with your issue if you have
missed out on Sonic's drama you've gotta check out this playlist over here because that fish
has been through some drama take time to enjoy your aquariums and I'll see in the next video