Help!?!? Betta on bottom of tank?!?

[Donna Pellitteri]

Help, my Betta is hanging out at the bottom of the tank. He never does this. There is something wrong and I don't know how to fix it. Changed some of his water on Thursday like 1/3 because his tank was due for a water change. He is in a 3 gal tank by himself with a few plants. Changed the filters. He's not eating. Added 1/2 tsp aquarium salt last night. He is moving around on the bottom but not a lot. Checked the pH, alkalinity, nitrates and nitrites with test strips everything was in ideal/safe zones. I tried uploading a pic or video and get the file is too large error. Ugh. Any help is greatly appreciated. Thank you.

 

[Guppylover3x]

Help, my Betta is hanging out at the bottom of the tank. He never does this. There is something wrong and I don't know how to fix it. Changed some of his water on Thursday like 1/3 because his tank was due for a water change. He is in a 3 gal tank by himself with a few plants. Changed the filters. He's not eating. Added 1/2 tsp aquarium salt last night. He is moving around on the bottom but not a lot. Checked the pH, alkalinity, nitrates and nitrites with test strips everything was in ideal/safe zones. I tried uploading a pic or video and get the file is too large error. Ugh. Any help is greatly appreciated. Thank you.

Hi and welcome to the forum

Please could you provide information on how long the tanks been set up and your parameters?

You mention changing your filter, if you have removed the old media most of your beneficial bacteria would have left with it.

Best of luck.

 

[Colin_T]

Hi and welcome to the forum

Any chance of a picture and short 20 second video of the fish?
If the pictures are too big for the website, set the camera's resolution to its lowest setting and take some more. The lower resolution will make the images smaller and they should fit on this website. Check the pictures on your pc and find a couple that are clear and show the problem, and post them here. Make sure you turn the camera's resolution back up after you have taken the pics otherwise all your pictures will be small.

If the video is too big for this website, post it on YouTube and copy & paste the link here. We can view it at YouTube. If you are using a mobile phone to take the video, have the phone horizontal so the video takes up the entire screen. If you have the phone vertical, you get video in the middle and black on either side.

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You need to check the ammonia levels.

You shouldn't change filter materials unless they are falling apart. If you remove or replace the filter media, you get rid of the beneficial filter bacteria and cause water quality problems. Filter materials should be washed/ squeezed out in a bucket of tank water and then put back in the filter.

If you can post a picture of the filter or the brand of filter, we can offer more info on cleaning it.

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Do a 75% water change and gravel clean the substrate every day for the next week or until we work out what is going on.
*NB* Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it's added to the tank.

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The following link has information about what to do if your fish get sick. It's long and boring but worth knowing.
https://www.fishforums.net/threads/what-to-do-if-your-fish-gets-sick.450268/