Listless Female Betta

S

SteveAK

AC Members
Nov 21, 2006
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I read some of the other posts here about listless female bettas, but I did not see any information that offered me an aswer to my particular situation.

I have a female betta that I bought about a month ago. She has been doing great, very active and was so this morning. Suddenly sometime this afternoon she has become listless. She was laying on the bottom of the tank motionless except for her gills. She didn't seem to be breathing heavily just normal. She then moved a little and kind of rolled to her side a bit. I moved her to an isolation tank where she is now laying on her side.

She was in a 5 gallon tank with two danios and a platty. The other fish are doing great still and the ph, nitrate, nitrite, temp and amonia are all where they should be. The betta does not have any markings of physical damage that I can see although she seems to be much darker in color on one side of her body and some of her scales seem to be protruding just a little bit. I haven't bred her and her fallopian tube has been dropped for weeks now. Do you think she is full of eggs? Or is it dropsy? I thought it may also be constipation. I just offered her some food and she was definately not interested. She only swam a little when I used the net to move her from the 5 gallon to the tank she's in now. Does anyone know what may be wrong with her or what I can do?

I appreciate everyone's help.
 
sorry to say but my betta (old one) did the same.... before it died... :(

of course, he was a male betta...
 
Mmm, could be constipation, or some sort of a bacterial infection. If the scales start to pinecone she probably has dropsy, in which case she's probably a goner.

For constipation, try to get her ot eat the insides of a shelled pea.

For bacterial infections, there are several AB meds you can use. Tetracycline, ampicillin, etc.
 
NinjaPirate said:
Mmm, could be constipation, or some sort of a bacterial infection. If the scales start to pinecone she probably has dropsy, in which case she's probably a goner.

For constipation, try to get her ot eat the insides of a shelled pea.

For bacterial infections, there are several AB meds you can use. Tetracycline, ampicillin, etc.
Click to expand...
I second this.
what are your amonia,nitrIte,nitrAte and ph readings?
what is the temp?abd when was your last WC?
IMO your five gal is OS,you should get rid of the platy and danios.....or get a ten gal.
 
...well this is a bit embarassing. I rechecked the levels in the tank just now. And things were a bit off. I talked to my girlfriend and she thinks we actually set it up about two weeks ago. So I guess it's been a bit less than a month. Anyways the tank is definately still trying to make it's cycle. I checked the tank with those Quick Dip test strips and it shows nitrites at +10 ppm :eek: The hardness is 75 ppm, Alkalinity topped out at 300 ppm and the pH came to 7.8. So obviously when I checked the levels before I was not paying attention. I've been adding Cycle to the water as we have with the other tanks. I have a power filter and a bubbler. What amazes me with the nitrites being sky high is that the 2 danios and platy are still doing fine. They are swimming around and being playful just like always. I've actually owned them longer than the tank they're in now.

Getting back to the sick betta, she's in her own tank now as I said before. She was sitting back on an even keel last night, but again today she's back on her side. Last night for a bit her tail was up in the air a little as she laid on the bottom of the bowl. She has swam up to the top to get air although her breathing has slowed a bit. She's developed a spot on top of her body where it looks like a snakes skin peeling. It still looks a little bit like some scales are starting to pinecone. I'm going to the fish store in just a few minutes here and will update you guys on her situation. But if anyone has any more suggestions please let me know. By the way, what does OS mean pertaining to the fish in the tank? Is that like over crowding?

Thanks again for all your help
 
Deffinantly sounds like she got some kind of bacterial infection that is most likely not dropsy. Should be able to treat her with a broad-spectrum antibiotic.
 
Well, she's still alive thankfully. I went to the fish store (not Walmart) and the one assistant told me he figured she had nitrite posioning which seemed quite possible with the nitrite level. So I got some BettaFix which he recommended. I was looking at some Tetracycline, but apparently it was in some form that she'd have to injest and since she's not eating... so he said to keep her in the bowl we have her in now. I'm supposed to make sure the levels stay at a normal range which shouldn't be hard since it's treated water which we keep a stock of and she's the only fish in there. Right now she's laying on her side and sort of catatonic. The assistant said she may have already suffered brain damage which makes me feel horrible and stupid for not thinking about the tank not having gone through it's cycle yet. The other fish are still fine amazingly and I've done a 50% water change and will check the levels tomorrow adding chemicals to reduce the nitrite if needed. So I'll keep you all updated with her condition.
 
Just do water changes to reduce the nitrite levels.
I don't like throwing more chemicals into a hospital tank than I have to.
 
Here's an update for you all. Thanks for your help by the way. She died very soon after we gave her the first dose of medicane. It was just too late unfortunately. But later on my girlfriend's one betta came down with the same symptoms. I had tested her large tank one night and the nitrate level was in the danger zone. So immediately I did a 40% water change because we didn't have enough water prepared for anything more. It didn't bring the level down any it seems. We watched the fish to see if any had problems until we could find a way to get the nitrates down. Eventually the betta in the tank showed the same signs as the other betta that died. Immediately I moved her to a small fish bowl we have. Her color went from her usual dark chocolate color to almost pure white as soon as I put her in the fresh water. She seemed to be doing great. Then I decided to move her into a one gallon that I had been preparing for her. As soon as I moved her she got worse though. She started laying on her side like the other betta. So I got the medication (BettaFix) out and gave a dose to her. I researched more about nitrite/nitrate posioning and found both will cause Gill Disease. Gill Disease as I'm sure you all know is basically an inflamation of the fish's gills and makes it hard for them to breath. When she tried to swim to the top to get a breath of air it was real hard for her sometimes. I had put a plant in there and it blocked her way at one point so I took it out. A few times I had to get a small net and help her to the top. Approximately 24 hours after the first dose of meds I gave her another. She started getting better and was no longer laying on her side. The next day she was even better. She was swimming around and breathing normally again. She was also eating again. Then the next day we left her in there just to make sure she was alright. The following day I went to work and came back home. My girlfriend had told me she had the lid sitting slightly off the tank for a little bit I guess to cool it off or something. Well she had gone to do something and came back about 15 minutes later and only noticed the fish on the floor when she stepped on it. She didn't crush it. So apparently for some reason the fish jumped out of the tank. So after all that work, she died anyways. I was kind of upset with my gf for taking the lid off the tank, I don't know whether to believe that or not. Anyways, the BettaFix worked and now I know what to do in the future. The only problem now is the nitrates in my gf's tank are still up. We tried a water treatment called EasyBalance with Nitraban. It's been almost a week since we put the first dose in and it hasn't done anything. So I'm going to post another topic on this, but just wanted to let everyone know what happened and thank you all for your help.
 
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