My (sick?) new betta Yin

Question
Hi, I got a male veiltail betta fish yesterday and named him Yin. He was very healthy compaired to the other bettas (Due to lack of air, plus dirty water, most of them were very weak!)

I got him home, put him in a clean one-and-a-half gallon tank with 2 clean live aquarium
plants and some "natural gravel" from the petstore. Then I noticed that his gills weren't closing
properly, (the inside tissue that usually only shows when a betta flares was sticking out even when
his gills were closed.) and he has a little bit of red speck on his face. His fins have some
red-and-blue coating on them, too (I am 80% sure this is a fungal infection, I've seen the exact same thing
in fish before and it was fungal.) I have a fungal med., should I use it?

I think the gill and face thing might be gill flukes, what do you think?
Are there other things that could be causing those things?



And what should I get/do to help my new fish;
I am determined to help him get better.

~Miriam



P.S.
I already gave him an epsom salt bath (1 teaspoon salt to 1 gallon water)
for five minutes and he was fine with that! (except the netting part, of corse
it is stressful for a fish to come out of water) Should I keep giving him
epsom salt baths? and if so, how often?

Answer
Miriam,
The gill issue is what concerns me most, as the tissue itself should not be visible when the gill covers are closed. May have caught the tissue in the net webbing...I would add a tablespoon or so of non iodized table salt into the tank...You could use the fungal meds but you may be better off with a allround treatment...the red in the fins,blood vessels is not a good sign either....if you have a heater put the temp up to about 86F...don;t worry of the O2 levels as Beta;s are capable of extracting O2 directly from the air...don;t overfeed and see if these measures help. Without seeing the fish in person its difficult to diagnose. i don;t think its gill flukes as you could see them with the naked eye..Hope things work out for the best!...