What's Wrong With My Betta? Swollen Belly...

[xenomorph]

I have a male CT that I've had for nearly a year; he lives in a planted 4g Finnex aquarium by himself. The aquarium is heated (78 degrees F) and has a miniature filter with peat moss and lava rock as filtration media. He is very happy in here and is fed a good varied diet (freeze dried bloodworms, betta flakes, frozen krill, bloodworms, plankton, the occasional bit of steak, etc).

We had a female betta in our community aquarium that died a couple weeks ago. Her stomach became swollen up then ruptured near the egg tube. She died not too long after. The day before her stomach swelled up, she was listless but still eating. The swelling/rupture seemed to happen overnight.

I just noticed my male betta has a swollen stomach and a reddish bump in the back of the stomach...he is acting normally, however (still displaying and goes to the front of the tank when people approach). How can I help him? I'm kind of attached to him so I would hate for him to suffer like my female did.

Thank you...

 

[DiscusKeeper403]

Hello,

could be overfeeding or probly more likely some kind of parasite. im not quite sure what it is but the same thing happend to my dwarf gourami and it diead hope u can kind a way to save ur betta!

 

[e11cloud]

Do you have a picture of the fish that you could add? There's all sorts of reasons this could be going on with your fish, and maybe even two different reasons for the swelling in the bellies of the female and the male. I'll be sure to tag this strain so that i can look at the picture quickly...good luck!

I really don't think that it's a good idea to give your betta steak...stick to food that's meant for fish...bettas wouldn't eat red meat or chicken or anything in the wild, so their bodies aren't really made for that. The steak, althogh occassional, might even be the culprit. Good luck!

Erika