Help now!! Swim Bladder Deseise in one of my Bettas

[BettaFishGirl]

I noticed that one of my older female betta fish has developed some symptoms of swim bladder disease. She has sort of an s-shaped spine, and she can't swim upright. I attached some pictures. I fasted her for 2 days, then started feeding her freeze dry daphnia one to two times a day, but she is still showing swim bladder symptoms. Any ideas how to treat?? It's a 3 gallon planted tank, with a heater and filter.

 

[Back in the fold]

That’s a shame because that’s a nice female in your pictures . I wish I knew an answer for you because the same exact thing has happened to me on many occasions with all kinds of fish but often with Betta‘s . I keep my Betta’s warm and I wonder if that is a contributing factor but some of these things are hard to figure out without a control to compare it to . Something I have thought about is the diet of Betta’s . When they are healthy they eat like horses and it might be that I have killed them with kindness at times . There really is no answer a guy can pin down with any absolute certainty . All situations are as unique as each individual fish and their keeper .

 

[GaryE]

It isn't swim bladder, which isn't a disease but a symptom. The S curve is usually a cyst on the spine from a fatal bacteria - as it grows with the fish getting older the deformity it causes increases. When it breaks, the disease cuts loose through the tank, while the infected fish dies.

The infection, usually Mycobacterium, comes from the fishfarm, and the fish can have years taken off its life by it. It can also live for years with it - bettas that should make 5 years rarely get past 3 with this. The cyst is the fish isolating its attacker and enclosing it for as long as it can - like a scab on a wound. There is no cure and no treatment.

I wish I could be more cheerful, but.

 

[BettaFishGirl]

I rescued her from PetSmart when she was in really bad condition....it's sad to hear that's what's happening. What about the bloating and her being tilted?

Also, when she passes (hopefully it won't be soon) what should I do to disinfect the tank and decor?

 

[BettaFishGirl]

Update: she is swimming on her side with a more extreme curve to her spine. Heavy breathing. Should I move her to a shallow container or put some plants at the top of the tank so she can get up to breath??

 

[Colin_T]

Can you post a video of the fish?
Upload video to YouTube, then copy & paste the link here.
If you use a mobile phone to film the fish, hold the phone horizontally (landscape mode) so the footage fills the entire screen and doesn't have black bars on either side.

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Dry foods can cause fish to float and show swim bladder like symptoms. To test this theory, stop feeding dry food for a week and use frozen or live foods instead. If the problem stops when the fish is not getting dry food, then it's air in the fish's intestine.

 

[Colin_T]

Update: she is swimming on her side with a more extreme curve to her spine. Heavy breathing. Should I move her to a shallow container or put some plants at the top of the tank so she can get up to breath??

If the symptoms came on suddenly in the last 24 hours, the fish is dying. She probably had internal organ failure and is in pain. I would euthanise her.

 

[BettaFishGirl]

She's been showing these symptoms slightly for about a week, but the worsened drastically in about 24 hours. I feed her pellets, but I've been feeding her daphnia lately.

 

[BettaFishGirl]

I've only had her for 6 months...is it something I did? I feel so bad.

 

[Colin_T]

Modern Bettas are heavily inbred and genetically weak. They an also carry internal diseases that they get at the fish farms, importers, wholesalers and pet shops. Some diseases can take months before they show symptoms. The fish was a rescue fish too and who knows what she was exposed to before you got her.

 

[BettaFishGirl]

Thank you for the info. When she passes, how should I disinfect the tank and decor??

 

[Colin_T]

If there are no other fish, shrimp or snails in the tank, just wash everything out under tap water (outside under the garden hose) and set it back up. Fill the tank with chlorinated tap water and let it run for a day or two before adding dechlorinater. Then wait a few days and get another fish if you want one.

Washing everything under ta water will help remove a lot of bacteria and other disease organisms. Then filling the tank with chlorinated tap water and leaving it to run for a day or two should help kill off anything that's remaining. It will probably wipe out the beneficial filter bacteria too but for a single Betta in a planted tank, there won't be much filter bacteria anyway.

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If she is in a community tank with other fish, then do the following.

Wipe the inside of the glass down with a clean fish sponge. This removes the biofilm on the glass and the biofilm will contain lots of harmful bacteria, fungus, protozoans and various other microscopic life forms.

Do a 75% water change and gravel clean the substrate every day for a week. The water changes and gravel cleaning will reduce the number of disease organisms in the water and provide a cleaner environment for the fish.
Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it is added to the tank.

Clean the filter. However, if the filter is less than 6 weeks old, do not clean it. Wash the filter materials/ media in a bucket of tank water and re-use the media. Tip the bucket of dirty water on the garden/ lawn. Cleaning the filter means less gunk and cleaner water with fewer pathogens.