Betta Swimming At Slant

[GuppyGoddess]

Hi everyone,

The Betta I brought home last week hangs out in bowl at a diagonal. She's angled down keeping her head lower than her tail. When she swims, however, she's horizontal.

A bit of background: I bought her from a local chain store for only a few dollars and felt I was liberating her! Today, I went back to the same pet store and all the same girl Bettas I had looked at last week are still there and the cups hadn't been cleaned in a while. So, I can pretty much assume that the fish already had ammonia damage before I brought her home. Now, I have her in a bowl and discovered even in that, she needs full 100 daily water changes. . .I'm going to do that. I guess regardless though, she has been suffering. . .

Any thoughts on how her angling down like that? Is this due to the ammonia?

 

[kelly528]

Hi everyone,
Maybe Swim Bladder Disorder? You should google it.

 

[GuppyGoddess]

Okay, thanks. I was reading about that in a bunch of Betta books I picked up from the Library and thought that she would have a swollen belly or be tipped the other way. . .but maybe not. I read the treatment is having her fast for a day or two. Guess I'll do that while doing 100% water changes.

 

[Luke_emma_23]

try giving her a cooked deshelled pea and then starving her for 1 day, what size is her bowl? is it heated? if you have the room she would be much happier in a filtered tank, they dont need to be huge, 5 US Gallons would be fine.
i think that doing 100% waterchanges could cause more harm than good as all the 'good' bacteria is being removed. i would do 50% at the most per day.
well done for saving her from those horrible cups!!!

 

[loraxchick]

feed pea and starve as mentioned above. hope she gets better soon!
cheers

 

[GuppyGoddess]

try giving her a cooked deshelled pea and then starving her for 1 day, what size is her bowl? is it heated? if you have the room she would be much happier in a filtered tank, they dont need to be huge, 5 US Gallons would be fine.
i think that doing 100% waterchanges could cause more harm than good as all the 'good' bacteria is being removed. i would do 50% at the most per day.
well done for saving her from those horrible cups!!!

She's in a one-gallon bowl right now and I'm in the process of setting her up in a 2.5 gallon tank, which will be heated. Basically, I had purchased a 1-gallon for my first betta and quickly realized he needed a bigger home so I moved him. Since I had the empty bowl left over, I decided to rescue a betta from the pet store and put it in that bowl. I think because everyone loves the long gorgeous fins of male bettas that the females are over looked and probably sit in the store much longer so she's less likely to be healthy (when I went into the pet store, I had planned to get a female and I was so happy to find a pretty one - she's blue with a horizontal stripe).

I'll cook her up a pea tonight! I bought some frozen ones a few weeks back for my Guppies, but the peas sank down in between the rocks and the guppies became confused. lol

(Now, what to do with the 1-gallon bowl! Guess that's off to the thrift store, huh?)