Update on Zeke: Still Alive, Still Not Moving Much

[DougLewis]

To catch anyone unaware up to speed, I inherited a Betta from my aunt, and I've never cared for one before. He's been pretty lively up until about a month ago, where he'd began damaging his fins - presumably tailbiting, based on what I'd researched on the pattern and abruptness of it.

As a result, I aimed to give him a bigger tank with more to stimulate him with, but while his fins have mostly healed since then, he's been laying at the bottom of the tank and barely moving outside of seeing him shift spots every now and then.

Up to now, I'd presumed that Zeke may have been suffering from ammonia poisoning. Since I hadn't noticed that I had no means to test for that with my strips, and I had been overfeeding a little and not regularly changing the tank.

And it's likely that had something to do with it. I've been doing about 30% water changes daily on the tank over the past week, and I'd only just now afforded a water test kit to see how the ammonia's doing. I'll leave a picture, but it looks to be at 0 ppm - I think. I wouldn't mind a second opinion.

Maybe my regular tank changes have made a difference, and I'll start seeing improvements from my boy soon, but for now, I guess all I can do is maintain a regular tank change schedule. Going down to once every two days this week, as suggested.

I just wanted to check and see if I'm doing everything right - make sure I'm not missing anything. I've been heating the change water to get it as close to tank temperature as possible, and treating it with Tetra AquaSafe for Bettas beforehand. Should I be adding anything else? I also read about anti-ammonia solutions?

It might just be that he still needs time to recover, but I can't help but worry.

In case you're wondering about specifications,

-The tank is 10 gallons, and I'm using an AquaClear CycleGuard Filter, since it has adjustible flow.

-Zeke has been in the tank for about 2 weeks now. He's...apparently eating, but I guess not when I'm looking. I saw him flit up to grab food once before. And that would explain his shifts.

-I've been maintaining the tank at roughly 77 degrees.

-As far as I've tested, there's been no significant presence of Nitrites, Nitrates, or Chlorine in the water.

-The hardness of water in the old tank was extremely high, but the water in the current tank is much softer. However, it had an issue with extremely high pH, but that should have been reduced significantly now that I've been buying distilled water instead of simply using treated tap water.

-I haven't done a test of the other levels for about a week now, so I'm going to test the other levels and make sure nothing has changed on that front. I'll reply with the results shortly.

[DougLewis]

Okay, I've gone through the other tests. My Nitrate test is showing up neon yellow, which should indicate that I have no significant nitrates, and I'm seeing clear blue from my nitrite test which also indicates I'm clean.

Apparently I have no means to test chlorine now, but the strips I'd used before were coming up clean too.

The pH seems to be sitting at about 7.8 now. Not quite as low as I'd want it, but it's still within ideal conditions for a Betta from what I've seen.

[Colin_T]

Water seems good so yay

You want to watch him eat and remove uneaten food after a minute. If the food isn't being eaten, it could sink to the bottom, rot and create ammonia problems.

Some fish don't like the food you offer them, so try different foods. When I first started keeping fish you could buy flake food and that was it. My fish ate it but weren't enthusiastic feeders. My dad used to go fishing all the time and I asked him if he had any ideas. He said what do they eat in the wild? I said insects and small crustaceans. I went outside and found some aphids on a rose bush, tapped them into a bucket and fed them to the fish. They enjoyed them. Dad had some raw prawn/ shrimp in the freezer for fishing. I grabbed one, defrosted it, removed the head and shell and threw these bits away, then used a pr of scissors to cut the remaining prawn tail into bite size pieces. Wow, the fish went nuts over it. Moral of the story, if the fish isn't eating with gusto, try something else.

You can buy frozen foods like brineshrimp, daphnia, mysis shrimp and bloodworms. You can use raw prawn, fish or squid from your freezer. Any non poisonous insects caught without chemicals can also be fed. I used to collect ants, ant eggs, aphids, small flies, mozzies and mosquito larvae, weevils and weevil moths, etc. If you get a lot of these, you can freeze them in a container with a lid and use them later on. Try different dry foods too because a lot of them taste different and fish do develop tastes for certain foods. FYI, if you are going to try dry fish flakes and pellets, have a glass of water handy because they stick to your tongue.

[DougLewis]

Thanks. I just got a new thing of Betta food for him too, and it's one of those 2-in-1 flake/pellet switches. I also have some freeze-dried prawn I think? But I stopped giving it to him as much because I think the excess really gummed up the tank.