Donny The Betta Has White Gunk By His Vent

Hi!  It's been a while since I've posted, sorry!  Been working pretty long hours lately. In the meantime, I haven't taken as good of care of Donny the Bettafish and was lax on water changes.       He has come down with a white patch on the fins by his vent area.  It seems to be confined only to there.

I have thoroughly cleaned his tank (always the first thing to do) and pulled out his live plants. Many young snails have gone to snail Valhalla now. Many.

He has had daily saltwater dips.  I have also added salt to his tank.  Didn't seem to do much after a week of daily 1/4th water changes with salt replacement. He's enjoyed playing in the water when it was being poured in, though.

Added catappa leaves, for good measure. No appreciable change. He has enjoyed lurking around under them.

Water change.

Then tried four days of Betta Revive (which contains methylene blue (<0.5%), proprietary polymer mixture, buffers, EDTA, malachite green chloride (<0.01%), cyanocobalamin and electrolytes.)   (That has always been my "go to" and worked on my other bettas really well for most problems they've had.) No appreciable change.

Big water change.

They didn't have a big stock of medications at the local aquarium store - the truck hadn't showed up and they said it was tough to get aquarium medications lately. I was looking for methylene blue and was going to try dabbing the spot only with it. None in stock, unfortunately. So the most likely one to try that they did have was erythromycin. (She agreed that the Kanaplex was kind of harsh, so trying a gentler one like the erythro was a better choice, and hopefully would work.)

Tried four days of erythromycin, with 1/4 water changes every other day per the instructions.  I can't see any difference on it. My daughter says she thinks "it looks a bit crustier" than it did before. Not sure what that actually would translate to - scab-ish, maybe?

Have put the carbon filter and his live plant back in, after another 1/4 water change. Added Flourish on the advice of the betta lady at the pet store. (I found an actual person at a pet store who had a clue about bettas.)  He's swimming around in there, apparently annoyed that I've put his plant back in and it's in his way now when he wants to patrol the tank.  That's Donny.

API says I could repeat the treatment, as needed. Not sure if I should wait to see if it is actually clearing up or not, or give him another course of the meds.

Donny's water parameters are spot on, he's at between 77F and 78F measured just above the gravel (which he's always been happy at - it's slightly warmer higher in the tank), and he was blowing a heck of a lot of epic bubble nests since his big tank clean out. He's swimming well and his appetite is good.

Not sure what else I can do for him at this point. I don't relish the idea of netting him out and using a cotton swab to put something like hydrogen peroxide directly on the white stuff, but I will if I have to and can't find the meth. blue soon.

Any other ideas I can try? Or am I rushing his recovery? (It's only been just over two weeks since I spotted it.)

I’m not a fan of trying medications before identifying the problem. Medications also cause stress.

Do you have a description? “White patch” isn’t much to go on. A picture also would tell us a lot.

Sounds like it may be lymphocystis.

So it appeared to have all but disappeared, and has come slamming back with a vengeance.  It's now like a mass attached at the base of his fin near his vent, rather than just a white discoloration. It is clearly visible sticking out looking from either side.  I have been religious about water changes, so it's not poor water quality at play now.

I have just re-started a course of erythromycin, since it did seem to help. I have API Fin and Body cure (Doxycycline) in reserve if salt dips and the erythromycin doesn't work.

The beta lady at the fish store says she recommends a sulfa, in case it's columnaris. (sp?). I've been looking everywhere for Furan 2, which used to be a "go to" sulfa treatment several years ago and which she also recommended, but cannot find it anywhere in town. Can anyone recommend a different brand?

Thanks. And what would those be, please?

Had my daughter come over to look at it. She has much better vision than I do. She says it does not look fuzzy at all, but more like a mass of cauliflower. Which, if memory serves, does not bode well for Donny. Still trying Erythromycin and salt, and will be switching to Sulfa on Friday when the medicine hopefully arrives in the mail. Have also ordered methylene blue and will swab him with it ASAP.

Yeah, I'm starting to think that's what it is. There are scales (he's blue, so it's easy to see them) on top of the mass now. Fingers are crossed it goes away on its own. It's grown quite a bit in just a short time, which is worrying.

Hope he continues to recover