Curing sick fish
 

I need some valid suggestions on saving a beta. I thought the fish was dying because it's been floating kind of strange and it laid at the bottom of its bowl for almost 24 hours straight. I was about to flush it and then it started shooting around the bowl. But it keeps dropping back to the bottom and laying on its side now. I think it must just be sick or would have died by now. So any suggestions on how to make this fishy feel better would be great. I know it's just a fish but it's a family pet and we'd like to keep him around.

Butter and a little pepper in a pan will solve the problem. :winkwink:

sounds liek he's on his last legs - er.... fins.


betas are not so easy to keep , you really gotta keep them at a nice warm temperature and make sure you feed em live food not just that flaky shit.

in my experience they like a smaller bowl too..

..you could always throw in another male - that might get some entertainment going :P

let it die, its almost dead anyways. ive had 3 betas, all of them died lol nothing i got (fish medicine) worked cuz it was too late. you really have to catch it early. its sad but its a goner. let it be. btw, by the sounds of it, i give it 2 days tops. just talking from experinece.

edit: is the belly big, does it look like he swallowed a pebble? if so, thats called dropsy (and he'll be dead soon.)

I have a friend who's had one for like a year and a half now. Thing just sits there floating, or at the bottom of the bowl. I suppose that is just how they are.

Hehe. Gross!

I had a salt water aquarium a few years back with a lot of coral, fish, plantlife, shrimp, crabs ... you name it. Very hard to maintain, but I feel you - I hated seeing a fish get sick.

There are meds from aquarium suppliers and resources online to identify fish illnesses (I'd recommend identifying first, obviously!)

[QUOTEhahahaha^..^=]sounds liek he's on his last legs - er.... fins.


betas are not so easy to keep , you really gotta keep them at a nice warm temperature and make sure you feed em live food not just that flaky shit.

in my experience they like a smaller bowl too..

..you could always throw in another male - that might get some entertainment going :P[/QUOTE]

Yeah the water is pretty warm. I changed him to a fresh clean bowl and that seemed to help a little, but I may be grasping for any hope. Unfortunately, the other 2 males we had died last year so no fighting! LOL. I have had this one for like 3 years now so I guess that is pretty old for a fish.

Ya I have two fish Ive had for about 3 years now. Its why I switched to Koi. They are a strong long living fish. Water tempeture can vary a large amount, and they like the standard flake food.

I actually took this pic last night of them. lol

http://www.sglhosting.com/imagehost/ryan/DSCN2265s.jpg

Yeah I know he probably will not hang on too much longer but nope the belly looks normal as far as I can see.

In college I built custom aquariums for sharks and reefs....so your beta's a bit small, but sounds like he may have bloat which is an air bladder infection. There are some medications to fix it, but some rock salt in the water may do the trick also, or the pan and butter is a sure thing too!

Ok first of all... NEVER FLUSH A LIVE OR EVEN SEMI-LIVING FISH DOWN THE TOILET!!! I don't mean to yell at you, but this is something I am very opinionated about. That is the worst thing you could do to try to put a fish out of it's misery. If you need to kill him humanely, hit me up on icq and I'll tell you how I do it. (78989718)

Secondly, from the darting around, it sounds like it may be internal parasites. When you do his next water change, add some aquarium salt (if you don't already normally do that) along with a couple of drops of liquid parasite medicine, and be sure not to overdose him cuz that could be fatal in itself. You might also want to treat him for a secondary bacterial infection, but first I would concentrate on the parasites cuz that will kill him.

I've had fish all my life. I have 2 bettas currently, and here's a site that I refer to from time to time when one of them seems to be not feeling well:
BETTA TALK
It's got some pretty useful information on it. The main thing though is that with any sickness or disease, you have to catch it early on or it's almost certainly a lost cause.

Very nice aquarium! I just recently got some koi for my pond in the yard. Those guys are doing well. :)

If you do all these things, I am sure he will live if there is ANY chance he will live, then this should do it. Sorry, if the items are not available to you. Just omit or improvise on the basic idea. We will presume that something is wrong with this fish. We will assume that, as with most cases of fish "oopsie", the cause is in the water. So what we're going to do is get your fish as gently as possible (but also as quickly) into some "good" water...

You with me?

Okay, first choice -- drive to a pet shop where the tanks are nice and the fish all look healthy and just ask them to sell you some water from a "healthy" tank -- this will mean water that is clean but that has has all the heavy metals and chlorine removed by filtration or more likely organic processes. If they look at you strange at the pet shop (it's actuallly quite an odd request) just smile and act like you are not insane. I have done this a lot.

Pay for the water (nothing crazy) if you have to.


Next thing is you want to achieve as swift and stress-free transfer of little Jonjon as possible. The two parameters you need to concern yourszelf with are temperature and...let's call "water chemistry" on thing, though it includes many sub-parameters.

Thankfully, it possible to acclimatize for both temperature and chemistry simultaneously. Here is where you will have to apply some mechanical ingenuity based on available items. But, basically what you will do is you will isolate Jonjon in a small amount of his original water, being careful not to agitate him too much during capture. The you want to rig some sort of drip mechanism, so that the new water fills the small container..slowly not moe than one drip per second -- usually an hour is recommended for this process, but go ahead and speed things along a bit to like 30-45 mins. At the same time, the small container has been sitting in the *destination* which is filled with new water. Be very careful not to allow old water into the new water. Last thing is, net the fish out of the small container and release into the new water tank. Cross your fingers, if he lives, he lives.


If you are unable to get enough or any clean water from an established tank, you can substitute bottled water (verify no heavy metals) and add to that the following exceptional aquarium product...

http://www.petsolutions.com/Images/200/48031161.jpg

Good luck -- :thumbsup

Oh no I thought he was dead, I would not have flushed him if I had thought he was alive. Thanks for the offer but I have no intention of putting him out of his misery especially because I am not really certain what is going on with him. I will hit the pet store first thing tomorrow to at least make an attempt with the salt and parasite medicine. It may be pointless but worth a shot. Thanks for the website and for your useful tips. :thumbsup

i would check the ph asap... it might be really out of wack.. try a water change.. also, does he have any white spots like the ick?

I don't even know how to check the ph. :Oh crap He has been living in just a regular old bowl since I got him. I will change the bowl again right now. He doens't have white spots on him but his bowl has quite a bit of white stuff in it at the bottom and I just changed his bowl and water yesterday. Not sure what it is but guess it could just be normal fish junk but have never noticed that stuff before.

get a ph tester at any pet store.. but if you want any advice, go to a fish store.. petsmart and places like that dont know shit. and get a deluxe ph testing kit. its easy to use and you should have some stuff to make the ph normal.. around 6.8- 7.2

whats up with your fish??? any news

Dr. Patricia Varner, aquatic disease diagnostic specialist in the Texas Veterinary Medical Diagnostic Laboratory says, "Many aquatic disease problems stem from poor management of the fish's environment, namely the water quality. The most common health problems seen in ornamental fish species tend to be either parasitic or bacterial in nature."

Read on... http://www.tamu.edu/univrel/aggiedai.../011504-4.html