Sick Female Betta

The friendliest place on the web for anyone with an interest in aquariums or fish keeping!
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.

Salieri

Aquarium Advice Newbie
Joined
Jun 20, 2016
Messages
4
Location
Canada
I have a 15 gallon tank with five female bettas in it. The tank has been set up for about two months, as I moved the bettas from a 10 gallon tank to a 15 gallon tank. I ran both the old filter, and new filter in the tank for about about a month and a half, and just recently took the older filter out. Recently, within the past week, one betta started staying at the bottom, but she's more active now, though she is swimming oddly. Another one of my bettas is not so lucky. She also began staying at the bottom about four days ago, and she is having trouble swimming as well. She's very lethargic, and she's having trouble even going to the top for air. Both fish are swimming head first, with their tails sinking. If they stop swimming, they sink back down to the bottom immediately.
I've been doing 25% water changes, and that seemed to work somewhat with the little red one, but the lightly coloured one is looking much worse. I don't know what's wrong, as things were fine just a week ago, so I don't want to treat for the wrong illness.
The temperature of the tank is about 25 Celsius, I use an Aqueon QuietFlow 10, and I have two air stones. There's also a mix of plastic plants, and planted Java Fern, and Anubias.
Just tested parameters, and there's been a spike in nitrates.
My current parameters are Ph: 7.6, Ammonia: 0.25, Nitrite: 0, Nitrate: 80.
I'm now doing 50% water changes to get the Nitrates down.
Update: She is now laying upside down on the bottom of the tank. She's still breathing, but I don't imagine she's going to last much longer. :/
Update 2: She died within a few hours of this post. Still attempting to get nitrates down, and doing multiple water changes daily.
 
80 ppm for Nitrates is way too high. 20 ppm or less is what you want...I would change about 75-80% every day until the Nitrates come down.
 
Last edited:
Yes, I know it's too high. I'm not sure why it suddenly spiked, but I'm trying to get it down. I just fear stressing out the other fish at this point. Should I removed them from the tank when doing such large water changes? Or just leave them in there?
I've already done a 50% change today, and I'll do another one when I get home later.
 
Back
Top Bottom