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Pablo acting funny... constipated? not eating? lethargic?

2K views 21 replies 4 participants last post by  Lenalee Nilla 
#1 ·
I just got my betta last sunday, so three days ago. he's acting funny. when I first got him he seemed happy, like he would swim around a lot and chase my finger when I held it up to the glass and he would flare at himself in the mirror and stuff. I bought him a heater a day after I got him (after reading all about bettas on this site) and put it in the tank and acclimated him to it slowly, and so the tank is a good temp for him. he was acting lethargic last night and would stay in one place not moving for a long time before swimming somewhere else and doing the same thing. Today I fed him this morning and he hasn't eaten any of it, and also, I don't think he's pooped since I got him. I'm not sure why. here's the survey thing:

Housing
What size is your tank? 2.5 gallons
What temperature is your tank? 81 degrees
Does your tank have a filter? no
Does your tank have an air stone or other type of aeration? no
Is your tank heated? yes
What tank mates does your betta fish live with? none

Food
What type of food do you feed your betta fish? I feed him top fin color enhancing betta bits.
How often do you feed your betta fish? I've been feeding him about four pellets twice a day, that's what it says to do on the food container

Maintenance
How often do you perform a water change? I haven't changed his water yet since I just got him three days ago. I'm going to do it today.
What percentage of the water do you change when you perform a water change?
What type of additives do you add to the water when you perform a water change?

Water Parameters:
Have you tested your water? If so, what are the following parameters? I haven't.

Ammonia:
Nitrite:
Nitrate:
pH:
Hardness:
Alkalinity:

Symptoms and Treatment
How has your betta fish's appearance changed? His appearance hasn't changed really, except one little thing that i'm not even positive about. It seems like his side fins used to be spread apart more when he swam, and now they're really small and close together, sort of un-flared, if that makes sense. he's moving them faster and seems to be trying to swim harder right now but he's not making much progress. he keeps floating up to the top but it seems like he's struggling to swim to the bottom.
How has your betta fish's behavior changed? see above.
When did you start noticing the symptoms? last night.
Have you started treating your fish? If so, how?
Does your fish have any history of being ill?
How old is your fish (approximately)? I just got him three days ago from Petsmart.
 
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#2 ·
You got him from petsmart, thats your problem.

But really, did you cycle the tank or just plop him in?
 
#3 ·
I didn't "just plop him in." I conditioned the water first. I didn't cycle the tank. I bought him with no knowledge of how to really take care of a betta fish, then I came on this website and saw everything that I needed to do, so I went out the next day to fix it: I bought him the heater and a place to hide and did everything I could without spending huge amounts of money to make his habitat a good one. I just want to know why he's not pooping and what could be the cause of his behavior.
 
#4 ·
Try putting a pea in some hot water for a few seconds, if canned peas are the only kind you have boil it, then shell the pea, and by that i mean take the coat off of it so its just mush, then feed the mush to your betta. He could be constipated.
 
#5 ·
Update: I changed pablo's water a while ago, putting in the water conditioner, then floating his cup in the tank and gradually adding the new water for a long time until he was fully acclimated. now he's back in his tank and he isn't acting lethargic anymore, but flapping his fins rapidly and sort of "panting." it's sort of worrying me, i don't know what the problem might be. It really seems like he's trying to propel himself forward but he can't do it, and he's just floating backwards instead. I don't know why he's flapping his fins so much. he seems to have a hard time swimming.

I would try the pea thing, except I have no peas and no access to peas since i'm a college student living on campus with no means of transportation. also I would be wary about doing that since i've heard mixed things about it. I'm just going to wait to see if he keeps acting strange. I'll try to feed him again tonight (i'll probably soak his food in water first to make it softer, because I read something about how feeding them dry food is bad since it expands in their stomachs and interferes with their swim bladder, which might be causing his floating problems) and hopefully he eats.
 
#6 ·
Pablo died... :( I determined that he definitely had swim bladder disease, probably from constipation. So I didn't feed him and was just going to wait a few days without feeding like it says to do, and I looked in his tank and he is just dead. I don't know what happened. :(
 
#7 ·
Like i said earlier, you should have given him a pea. Im sorry he died.
 
#8 ·
The pea would not necessarily have saved him. It's likely that he was sick before you got him and that your overfeeding exacerbated the problem. Many times when you first get your fish, they come from the farm a bit stunted and need time to grow into their appropriate adult size in larger, cleaner tanks. Eight pellets a day is a lot of food for a betta, especially a small betta. Next time you should feed half that amount--two pellets twice a day and always soak them in a bit of tank water until they are fully rehydrated before feeding. This will help prevent bloating and constipation as the small, dry pellets swell in the fish's gut as they continue to absorb water as they are digested. Keep in mind that many of the instructions on pet products are intended to make the pet industry more money rather than make life better for your fish.
 
#9 ·
Adastra, if his betta was indeed constipated, like my first betta, a pea wouldve made him defecate inside of 24 hours. I dont mean to sound harsh, but if its health was already declining as much as it was then feeding a pea wouldve been the best thing to do for his betta. If the disease was already too far along his betta wouldve died anyway, but if it was constipation the pea couldve saved it. It was a poor understanding of betta care on his part, thats a fact, but his heart was in the right place and he was scared of making his condition worse, just like me when i had my first betta, but i did nothing, just like this guy, and my betta died. He tried his best to make sure the betta was comfortable and happy and well fed, but its that need to take care of something that ended up killing the betta. No one can say for sure what killed his betta, and he was already doing what he thought was right, but instead of going and trying something like the pea, he wanted someone to tell him that he was doing everything he could so that his pride and ego would be soothed. Ive seen it dozens of times before in real life, this is no exception. Sorry for sounding harsh.
 
#10 ·
I don't think the OP was reacting in a particularly callous manner--a lot of people get into this hobby before they realize how much fact-finding is involved. There is a lot of mixed information out there and it can be very difficult to take it all in when you have the pressure of an ailing betta on your hands. Some people say that since bettas are carnivores and cannot digest vegetable matter (which is true, hence why people use it for its value as fiber), that it shouldn't be fed to them because it may cause damage. I don't personally believe this to be true, but in this case I think the OP was erring on the side of caution, still an error, but it still reflects that they did take the time to look at different sources before coming to a decision.

Sometimes when you give people instructions, you have to supply enough background information to sort of prove your own credibility. I try to do this in my posts so that people understand why I think my opinion is valuable over someone else's. Perhaps next time instead of just instructing him to give the fish a pea, explain why peas are suited for this purpose--in this case, it's because the fish cannot digest them, so they serve as a shot of fiber. This helps people in threads like this one make their decisions faster and feel confident in the people who are trying to help them.

Hopefully the OP will take this experience as an opportunity to learn more about betta nutrition and feeding.
 
#11 ·
I never said he was, i said he was hasty and didnt read enough about them and to read the pros and cons of something like bettas. He wanted someone to tell him what he wanted to hear, and, like most people, when he read up about peas and bettas he only looked at the cons instead of the pros. He didnt want advice so much as wanting to knwo he was doing everything he could.
 
#12 ·
There's really no point in being so judgmental--you cannot read the OP's mind, after all. :/ The only thing that does is make people more reluctant to come back to forums like this and seek advice.

You catch more bees with honey than with vinegar.
 
#13 ·
You make more pickles with vinegar than honey. Notice how i kept my judgment out till after it died. Im not gonna just sit there being misses nice when someone doesnt cycle their tank, and then doesnt take advice that could help their fish. If he had tried it and it died then it would be different, but he sat there doing nothing but watch it die slowly.
 
#14 ·
I think you're going to find these forums to be much more frustrating than it is worth, unfortunately. Almost all of what I end up doing here involves dealing with people who are a bit ignorant and are receiving information that wasn't what they wanted to hear. It's still important to be civil, though--because they could easily go to another forum with lower care standards and their bettas would suffer. Sometimes you have to look past how annoying some of the people are that post here for the sake of their fish. The person may run out and get another betta and then not come back when it gets sick as well, y'know?

I'm not saying this out of any animosity or anything, just trying to make the point that being polite isn't about the other member's feelings, ultimately, it's about the care the betta receives. There have been plenty of times I have wanted to just scream at someone, and tell them that they have no business owning their own life, much less the life of another creature, hahaha. But if I did that, they sure wouldn't be open to advice, they'd probably just go to a store and listen to whatever the clerk had to say and then another betta would die. Putting on a front even when you're fuming at someone is par for the course in these forums, and this case wasn't bad at all. Wait awhile, you'll see what I mean. Sometimes we get really bad ones where the people don't want to learn at all, at least this OP was congenial and open to suggestion, and really wasn't unpleasant or overly careless in my opinion, just a bit misinformed.
 
#15 ·
Ich wette, Ihr jünger als 20 Jahre nicht? :roll:

I wasnt mad at all this whole time, if thats what your stabbing at. If someone genuinly cares about something, be it fish, food, electronics, etc, they wont go elsewhere if they get yelled at or teased or trolled if theyre new. If they really dont care and are just doing it for the flavor of the month, then i see no point in being kind and helping them take baby steps. If they truly want to take care of bettas then they will ghoogle, alot, before coming and posting. Thats what i do, i click and read several links to get a good understanding of what i should do to take care of my fish. Like aquarium salt, I wasnt sure if the box was right, so i googled, fifteen results later i settled on one table spoon every five gallons, one site said one teaspoon every ten gallons, another said a tablespoon every gallon, so i ended up with a tablespoon every five gallons.
 
#16 ·
I think I'll take the rest of this discussion to PM. This is just getting silly to carry on in this poor person's thread, hahaha.

To the OP, this brief commentary on my part was not directed at you, so please do not feel insulted. I don't think you were out of line in the slightest, and I think it's a terrible pity that you lost your fish.
 
#17 ·
Well first of all, I'm a she. I thought the name Elyse was a clear girl name. anyways, THANK YOU, adastra, for saying that it's a terrible pity I lost my fish and not to be insulted...

Lenalee, You're really going to tell me that it's my ignorance and stupidity that killed my fish? I didn't just "sit there watching it die slowly." I told you, I couldn't just go out and buy a bag of peas. If you want to blame me for being a stupid college student who shouldn't have the right to own a fish, then go ahead, but I had no means to just go out and buy some frozen peas! I was planning on begging someone with a car to take me to the grocery store to buy peas today, actually, but that isn't necessary anymore. I did do my research, I googled a lot, that's how I discovered this forum in the first place, and I came on this forum when pablo was having problems and searched for anything having to do with swimming problems and I was almost positive that he had swim bladder disease. He was displaying all of the symptoms and every website I looked at said that the best thing to do for swim bladder disease is to not feed them for a few days and it will go away on its own, or to feed him a pea, which I was trying to do. I don't really care if you think that I killed my fish because I don't have the means to drive to the store and buy peas. I know that it wasn't neglect on my part. I came onto this forum GENUINELY LOOKING FOR ADVICE AND INFORMATION, not just someone to stroke my ego and tell me that i'm doing nothing wrong. I can tell you, I don't think I will be posting on here anymore if this is the kind of feedback i'll be getting for just trying to solve a problem with my fish. I'm new to all of this and I would really appreciate not being treated like an ignorant selfish person just because I didn't know about how to properly take care of a betta before I found this forum. Once I learned, I did everything I could to make sure I was taking care of him. I will admit that I didn't know that having a betta involved so much care because I had had one before and didn't take care of it nearly as well as I should have. The average person knows NOTHING about any of this stuff. and you can't fault them for that. But the point is, once I learned how I needed to take care of him to make him happy, I actually tried to do so.

so thanks so much for your sympathy.
 
#18 ·
and yes, i'll fully admit that I overfed him unintentionally because I thought the feeding instructions on the bottle would be correct and almost every person i've seen on here says that they feed their betta about twice a day. I thought I was doing the right thing. Needless to say I won't make that mistake next time.
 
#19 ·
also, Adastra is right, if someone had told me that the reason peas work for constipation is because the betta can't digest it and it works as a shot of fiber, I wouldn't have been as wary about feeding him a pea. All I knew was that i've heard more people on this forum say that feeding a betta a pea is bad because they can't digest it. I didn't know that was the REASON it worked for constipation.
 
#20 ·
Everyone makes mistakes and does things they regret. Heck, when I started out, my first fish got a terrible ich infestation because I didn't realize the incandescent light on the tank, plus the fact that my heater didn't work on a thermostat was causing horrible temperature fluctuations. I tried salt, I tried copper sulfate, and nothing worked, it just got worse and worse until I finally figured it out.

It wasn't for lack of trying or lack of care, it's just one of those learning situations that you feel really bad about later. Ultimately the fish got better once I realized what the problem was, but he was never really the same after that. We all have to start somewhere, and now I do my best to try to share my experiences so that other people don't have to learn the hard way. This is exactly why you will never see me keep quiet on the issue of non-adjustable heaters because I know what problems they can cause. :)
 
#22 ·
Way to beat a dead horse (not sure if pun intended)
 
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