why has my betta stopped eating regularly

[Dan420]

I have had this betta for a while and now he won't eat any food I give him. I have been able to feed him a little yesterday but now he won't eat at all. It's is an established tank that this betta has been living in for over 8 months. He was. Healthy the whole time until now. I did a water change after neglecting tank maintenance for a while and he hasn't been eating normally since. There has been a few days where he has eaten less than normally ( I normally would be able to feed him 4 pellets a day and that's was the right amount for a long time.) he has not eaten more than 3 in a day recently and most days he won't eat at all or just 1 pellet. I know something's wrong when he used to easily eat 4 pellets a day and be happy. I did add some plants about 2 weeks ago near when he started not eating abnormally. There has also been a major heat wave in my area and I'm not sure if that has anything to do with it. The room hasn't gotten above 81 degrees though. I have 2 other fish tanks that are doing fine though and I can't figure out why my betta hasn't been eating normally. He has been swimming around a little more lethargic than normal but he doesn't look sick or anything. The pellets he eats and has been for most of his life are aqueon tropical granules (yellow lid) that they sell at petco.

Wen I feed him I have a hard time even getting him to swim around to the front where I can feed him. He usually just is resting on some plants. When he does happen to swim in an area that I can put a pellet in the tank he sometimes just completely ignores the pellet or just swims away, sometimes he will just look at it, sometimes he will chase after it if its sinking but then when it drops he would suck up a plant or snail shell spit it out and then swim away and be difficult by not reacting or wanting to eat. I have been spending more time than I would like trying to feed him and its worrying me that he's not eating normally.

Please help I'm trying to keep him alive because he's only eating a small fraction of what he used to normally eat.


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[Glabe]

do you know any tank parameters before or after? Maybe uber high nitrates before the change? How much water did you change out? Is he getting a good day/night cycle? Doesn't your kit have an incandescent bulb that can heat the water higher than your room's 81F? was he in good shape before you bought him? Some of these are reaching a bit, but it'll get the ball rolling

The easy answer would be that you changed your water chemistry drastically with the water change, chemically or temperature, and he's a bit roughed up from it. That being the case or not, bettas are tough. Just keep his water super clean for a while, and he'll probably be ok (works for most issues.) Don't worry about him starving. If he only accepts one pellet every other day, that's enough to keep him going for a while.

You could try soaking his pellets in garlic juice to encourage eating. I haven't gotten around to trying it yet, but it sounds like it works

 

[Dan420]

I changed about 50% of the water and cleaned the majority of the glass which stressed him out due to his constant reflection bullying him all the time. His tank is heated at a constant 79/80 degrees. The day/night cycle is set for 12 hours. What you said about the extreme change of environment effecting the betta sounds about right. That seems to be the only reason for this since it all started after that major cleaning. However, he has never been an easy fish to feed; he has always been very picky.