TrooperTheBetta
New Member
Hi there. I’ve contacted so many vets about this, and everyone says to euthanize him. I really want him to have a chance at living his best life, so please hear out this story.
My male betta fish, Trooper, has had some sort of bubble in his abdomen and has been stuck at the surface of the tank and unable to swim downwards for a year. He’s from a fish store and is most likely inbred, so it makes sense that he has some kind of disease. We’ve tried so many tank mates in the past, such as neon tetras, snails, etc, but they’ve all attacked him so we had to get rid of them (except the snails, but they have a good home now). Recently, we bought an algae eater for the tank, thinking it would be nice since they both stay on opposite sides of the tank. We thought they could live in peace and that he would finally be the one that could coexist with Trooper. That didn’t work, because we found the pleco attacking Trooper, and using his barbs on his head to rip his fins. Trooper was using his small amount of energy to try and fend for his life. The algae eater is nocturnal, so I can only imagine what he was doing to him at night. His fins are damaged, and he’s very sickly. We’ve had problems with him in the past where his abdomen would get swollen and red, but that was months ago and hasn’t came back since (thank god). He’s very low energy and sickly, do you think there’s anything I can do to help him?
I thought he might be lacking nutrients, he doesn’t poop often and his stomach looks swollen compared to the rest of his body which is paper thin. He eats Omega One Betta Buffet pellets. We’ve tried soaking them, but it didn’t seem to help so we stopped. We tried frozen, freeze dried, brine shrimp, and they’ve all ended badly. He can’t swim around and when we put him in a container to eat the food, it caused more stress than necessary and he was too scared to eat.
The fish store said they have this guy that does a procedure on fish like Trooper, where they insert a needle and extract the air keeping him at the surface. We considered it for a bit, but now that this happened we don’t think he’d have the strength to make the car ride there. And I don’t want his last memories to be painful, since the needle alone will probably be enough to send him into shock.
I’m sorry this is so long, I just really want help for him. The attached pictures are before he got sick (first two) and after (second two).
My male betta fish, Trooper, has had some sort of bubble in his abdomen and has been stuck at the surface of the tank and unable to swim downwards for a year. He’s from a fish store and is most likely inbred, so it makes sense that he has some kind of disease. We’ve tried so many tank mates in the past, such as neon tetras, snails, etc, but they’ve all attacked him so we had to get rid of them (except the snails, but they have a good home now). Recently, we bought an algae eater for the tank, thinking it would be nice since they both stay on opposite sides of the tank. We thought they could live in peace and that he would finally be the one that could coexist with Trooper. That didn’t work, because we found the pleco attacking Trooper, and using his barbs on his head to rip his fins. Trooper was using his small amount of energy to try and fend for his life. The algae eater is nocturnal, so I can only imagine what he was doing to him at night. His fins are damaged, and he’s very sickly. We’ve had problems with him in the past where his abdomen would get swollen and red, but that was months ago and hasn’t came back since (thank god). He’s very low energy and sickly, do you think there’s anything I can do to help him?
I thought he might be lacking nutrients, he doesn’t poop often and his stomach looks swollen compared to the rest of his body which is paper thin. He eats Omega One Betta Buffet pellets. We’ve tried soaking them, but it didn’t seem to help so we stopped. We tried frozen, freeze dried, brine shrimp, and they’ve all ended badly. He can’t swim around and when we put him in a container to eat the food, it caused more stress than necessary and he was too scared to eat.
The fish store said they have this guy that does a procedure on fish like Trooper, where they insert a needle and extract the air keeping him at the surface. We considered it for a bit, but now that this happened we don’t think he’d have the strength to make the car ride there. And I don’t want his last memories to be painful, since the needle alone will probably be enough to send him into shock.
I’m sorry this is so long, I just really want help for him. The attached pictures are before he got sick (first two) and after (second two).
