Problems With Female Betta

[BethK]

With other fish, just being in the presence, helps egg bound fish to lay

 

[Platygirl11]

With other fish, just being in the presence, helps egg bound fish to lay

Oh. Well, lets hope it works-- going to check now.


EDIT: Nothing yet. I suppose it's been too soon.

 

[BethK]

Give her 24hrs and see if she goes down x

 

[betta fish]

Yes your female just looks very swollen with eggs, she's a beautiful girl the presence of a male may cause her to drop the eggs without them actually ever physically meeting, I have had disaster spawns where I have conditioned a pair for a couple of weeks and then jarred the female in the males tank for a day or two so they can familiarise only to find she has prematurely dropped! then I have to start all over again and wait for her to egg up, she may drop and eat the eggs though which will still make her look eggy keep an eye on her poop it will be white if she has! or she may build a little bubblenest herself and attempt to place them in, increase the tank temp to 80f and see how she goes

 

[Platygirl11]

Thanks! I'm so glad she isn't too ill.

 

[Platygirl11]

I don't notice any difference. Am I out of options now?

 

[BethK]

I would phone your nearest Vet clinic and ask them for the appropriate advice. Tell them you can't afford to bring her in but you are very worried, you have tried certain things and nothing (sometimes, the kind vets offer 1 free consultation). See if they offer you any medical advice for her x

 

[taffy1]

Your girl looks to be too oddly shaped for it to be eggs. Looks more like Dropsy to me. Putting her in the presence of a male would just increase the stress levels, which doesn't help an already sick fish. How about adding some aquarium salt, and treating with a broad spectrum antibiotic? A few years ago, I'd successfully treated a male with Dropsy, and he went on to live at least another year. I believe I may have used a Maracyn/Maracyn two combination, to ensure we targeted both the gram negative and gram positive bacteria. It took several weeks though. I had given the meds 5 days on, then did a 30% water change the day after that. The following day, I started again for another 5 days, and so on.

You can also try Melafix, but you need to be careful with that; and I think you might have more luck with the antibiotics.

 

[betta fish]

Being excessively eggy can also lead to dropsy when the eggs just sit there and don't get reabsorbed or passed but the photos don't appear to show this, do her scales stick out from her body at all? she may also be constipated, what is she being fed on? and how often? I would be inclined to starve her for a bit and perhaps offer her a pea, is she showing interest in your male? i.e swimming at him when he goes past, flaring at him and looking like she wants to get out the container? if he has built a large bubble nest and is interested in her displaying etc you could release her so that they do actually spawn, he will gently squeeze the eggs form her and then you can remove the eggs once they have finished unless you want to allow them to hatch? p.s aquarium salt will not help with dropsy it will make matters worse if she does have it you will need to use epsom salt to draw out the excess fluid.

 

[BethK]

Salt fullstop shouldn't be added, if a fish is bloated, it will make it worse if anything x

 

[betta fish]

Salt fullstop shouldn't be added, if a fish is bloated, it will make it worse if anything x

True, but not Epsom salt it has the opposite effect of normal salts here is a link that I have found that may be of some help to platygirl11 http/www.healthybetta.com/fish-dropsy

 

[Platygirl11]

Actually, they showed no interest that I could see. The male would pass right by the net, and she would glance, then turn away. I took them out yesterday.
I don't know if my family will agree to taking a fish to the vet.
Plus, some extreme tank changes have been going on:
10 gal- a few male guppies (or endlers, I'm not really sure)
38 gal-Entirely empty(It took almost 3 hours, but now its going to be a land hermit crab tank)
5.5 gal-divided between male and female betta. Tank-mates are 2 feeder guppies (female, and on the males side-- he already tolerated them, and I didn't want bloodshed) and one ghost shrimp.
I generally feed her 3 hikari betta bio-gold pellets, but when she had other female betta tankmates she was the boss and would steal their pellets.

About the 5.5 gal-- I know there are too many tank-mates, but I am working to move out the guppies. They are probably going to the fish store today (They managed to escape yesterday when I was taking the others to the store). The filter for the tank is a sponge filter that I made running on a Vibra Flo 1 air pump. I am sure it is cycled, the filter has cycled sponge as well as filter media from my oldest tank. The divider is a foam divider, so sadly they cannot see each other.

Also, could it be that she was eggy, then the eggs became infected?

Ugh, lesson learned-- DO NOT LET FISH GET THIS EGGY.

 

[BethK]

Maybe try feeding her some blood worm only, see if that helps?

 

[Platygirl11]

Blood worm or boiled peas??? I thought peas were supposed to help with bloating.

 

[BethK]

peas do but blood worm is a natural food to them and full of goodness. All other avenues seem to be exhausted, so thought it be worth a shot