My wifes betta

[Antipixx]

My wifes betta has this huge bulbous look to him and im worried. Can anyone help my fish.....my wifes fish.

 

[gkuzel]

By bulbous, you mean round? Any way you can post a picture? And when's the last time the fish had a BM?

 

[Ze_Ubermuffin]

He might be over eating... They will hapily eat themselves to death ={

 

[Antipixx]

Here's those pics sorry about quality taken with wifes ipod

 

[Antipixx]

As far as over eating i've been watching his diet for about 4-5 days.
About his bm schedule.......i'm not really sure he pooped last.
Hehe i got to type pooped in a serious manner yay!

 

[Homedog98]

Umm... He's either really bloated or really fat. What do you feed him?

 

[gkuzel]

It almost looks like dropsy =( if you feed him pellets, he could be backed up. It looks painful =/

 

[siva]

Stop feeding that fish right away. No more food while he looks like that, unless it's blanched shelled pea.

Are his scales raised up from his body? When you look down at him from the top of the tank, does he look like a pinecone?

What food do you feed him? type/brand,etc?

 

[gkuzel]

Agreed with siva, if he won't eat the pea, try blanched zucchini.

 

[Antipixx]

I've only been feeding him the freeze dried blood worms from san francisco bay brand, and only a very small pinch but will try the veggies mentioned.

 

[MartinBlank]

That would be a 100% protein diet and I think even bettas need some ruffage. Being freeze dried just increases the issue (he eats them before they have absorbed all the liquid, thus they continue to expand in his tummy).

He is probably backed up (constipated). I would try and feed him the pea as mentioned, and then get some good quality betta pellets (I like the hikari ones myself). The blood worms work as a portion of his diet, but I don't think they should be 100% of his diet.

Fish can go a few days without eating, and I would advise not feeding him until he looks a bit better (outside of the mentioned vegetables)

 

[siva]

Never feed freeze dried food. It will cause problems like this. I would feed a high quality pellet 3-4 days a week such as hikari or new life spectrum, a frozen food 2-3 days a week such as bloodworms or brine shrimp, and a few pellet sized peices of shelled blanched pea once a week.

For right now, I would feed a few peices of pea today, then fast for several days.

Are his scales raised up from his body? When you look down at him from the top of the tank, does he look like a pinecone?

 

[James_in_MN]

I've only been feeding him the freeze dried blood worms from san francisco bay brand, and only a very small pinch but will try the veggies mentioned.

Don't feed freeze dried anything to bettas if you can avoid it. As others suggested, Hikari betta pellets are great for them.

If your betta is in a community tank, then you can do a trick that someone suggested to me. Soak your freeze dried <whatever> in dechlorinated water for a good 10+ minutes. That's better for all the fish, not just the betta, because the freeze dried food will soak up water before the fish eat it, which should drastically reduce any chances of bloating.

The nice thing is, bettas will typically sit at the surface waiting for the food, and the soaked freeze dried food will sink right past them to the other fish, so they can end up missing most of it to their hungry neighbors. Then, you can slip them a few betta pellets at the end of feeding the others.

When I started to soak the freeze dried food before giving it to the fish, it actually became more fun to feed the fish. They go absolutely nuts trying to snap it up, especially now that the fish that don't come to the surface get a chance to compete for the sinking morsels. I also think that the food twisting in the water as it falls makes them think it's live food.

 

[Antipixx]

I actually have been presoaking them in a un used shotglass containing water from the tank i'm feeding, and yes he does have the pinecone look from the top. I've been doing some research on it. It's just kinda hard to keep a constant eye on him when i'm in the middle of a bed bug problem as well. I already have to move my tanks out side while i bomb and spray our appt. Thankfully i've got a screened in pourch with power plugs outside.

 

[siva]

Yikes. That is most likely dropsy. I just had to put down my betta with dropsy today. How long has he looked like this? He looks really bad... Here's the sticky on euthanasia..it may end up being helpful. http://www.aquariumadvice.com/forums/f17/an-overview-of-euthanasia-73775.html

 

[Antipixx]

So this dropsy is a fairly common thing? I was feeling like such a jerk for having this poor sick fish.

 

[Antipixx]

Thanks for those tips i'll keep them in mind but i'm not entirely comfortable with it. He looks bad but he acts normal not thrashing around the tank like hes in pain.

 

[Antipixx]

Oh and on a different note do male bettas usually get along with black neon tetras??

 

[hippy guy]

My rule of thumb with bettas is always a maybe. Although some fish can get along fine with bettas, some bettas won't get along with other fish. I have a fairly aggressive delta tail betta, and he lives fairly happility with neon tetras, and a couple bristlenoses in his ten gal, and usually any fish smaller, less colorful, and without a flashy tail section should be fine, but its just like putting 6 people, all from different origins together, some people are just jerks, and fish too lol

 

[Antipixx]

My rule of thumb with bettas is always a maybe. Although some fish can get along fine with bettas, some bettas won't get along with other fish. I have a fairly aggressive delta tail betta, and he lives fairly happility with neon tetras, and a couple bristlenoses in his ten gal, and usually any fish smaller, less colorful, and without a flashy tail section should be fine, but its just like putting 6 people, all from different origins together, some people are just jerks, and fish too lol

I ask because i'm currently running a 10 gal with 3 zebra danios, 3 blk neon tets. , 1 female betta , and like 4-6 ghost shrimp. The male betta is also in the same tank but he's in a large tall vase ( over the water level by 1 1/2 in.) he is getting water filtration by setting the edge of the vase partially under the filter. Acheving a kinda waterfall effect but too much current in his vasebut clean water. Well 1 of the tetras keeps jumping from the tank to the vase for awhile then goes back the same way he came. Is this normal? Oh and it's always the same tetra!!