So Many Questions

[dbullwinkel]

hello. my son came home for spring break and left his male betta--felt the 4 hour car ride was too stressfull for him..i am new to this. we put him in a 2.5 bow tank with a heater and whisper filter with a flow a control (turned to lowest) he was doing great. 3 days after my son went back--not so good. swimming sideways and at bottom alot. I tougth maybe i was feeding him too much-skipped a day and decreased the amount. tested water: all fine. I had changed water prior to this and used bottles spring water (my son used treated tap). I had treated the bottled water-wasnt sure if i should have. I changed 25% of water, and I put salt in water. I also turned the filter up.--now he is more active and happy, ate fine this morning. doesnt seem to be swimming sideways.

I am not sure if i see a small "something" on the front of him. I bought betta fix, but now that he looks better was wondering if i should hold off?

I added bettafix friday nite. Do i need to remove the cartidge from the whisper filter?

Should I change water before adding more bettafix? If so, how much? His tank is 2.5 gallons.

also, i thought they didnt like water movement-should i lower it down. could it have been the bottled water? I feel such responsibility--would really like "wayne" to be here when my son comes home next!

 

[zoekin8yg]

Its usually better to use treated tap water as bottled water has a lot of the electrolytes etc taken out. He might have been a little constipated so lowering his food will have helped.

 

[dmarie04]

You can try feeding him a pea. That helps with constipation, if that's his problem. Lower how much he eats and fast him one day a week. Treated tap water is actually better than the bottled stuff (in most cases). If you do start noticing some spots or something, it would depend on what kind of spots they are as to how you could treat.

 

[-germ-]

Sounds daft but what bottled water was it?
Some of them contain all sorts of odd stuff.....

 

[girl4God81]

Sounds like he's being very well taken care of! I'm not sure about the treated tap vs bottled, but sounds like they know what they are talking about, so I agree

You are adding dechlorinator, right? Just wanted to make sure

 

[Keavy]

I used to use bottled distilled water with stress coat, and then was advised by people here to use tap water with decholrinator. My betta seems much healthier now that I'm not using distilled. So I don't think using bottled water once could have a huge negative impact on Wayne, as I used it for a few months and my fish seems fine. But the tap water is better, and also cheaper I think.

 

[dbullwinkel]

Wayne is his jolly self again! I did treat for two days with bettafix and changed his water back to treated tap water. The one small spot I saw is gone. I have decreased his food and will skip one day a week. I bought him a live plant--forgot what it was. the guy in the store said to get if for Bettas. Anyway, thank you for your help. As I said I am caring for Wayne until my son comes home from college--he loves this fish!

 

[Phaedra]

That's so sweet! I'm glad to hear that Wayne's doing better. It sounds like you have a wise son, he entrusted his betta to the right person!