Indigo-- Heavy breathing

[Frodo Bagfins]

Two nights ago I suspect that my two year old heater over-heated because the water felt really warm and my fish was breathing heavy and upset. So I turned it off and things cooled down. I did not have any replacement yet so I used my mini-heater that heats a 1 gal tank and kept his light on all night. That was the night before last night. He seemed to be better the next day. But today he is breathing heavily again (like he was when the heater over-heated). He is darting around the tank a lot and acting very antsy and will dart away if you put your hand near the tank and he always used to be interested in hands. He is swimming back and forth really fast never resting. His name is Indigo.

Housing
What size is your tank? 10 gal
What temperature is your tank? 76-78 deg about
Does your tank have a filter? Yes
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? Omega One Betta Buffet pellets
How often do you feed your betta fish? 2 x per day

Maintenance
How often do you perform a water change? 50 % once a week
What percentage of the water do you change when you perform a water change? 50 %
What type of additives do you add to the water when you perform a water change? Conditioner

Water Parameters:
Have you tested your water? If so, what are the following parameters?
Will test later
Ammonia:
Nitrite:
Nitrate:
pH:
Hardness:
Alkalinity:

Symptoms and Treatment
How has your betta fish's appearance changed? Looks a little bit lighter. Looks brown instead of normal blue/black. Heavy breathing is main symptom.
How has your betta fish's behavior changed? Darting back and forth never slowing down
When did you start noticing the symptoms? the last couple days
Have you started treating your fish? If so, how? No.
Does your fish have any history of being ill? No.
How old is your fish (approximately)? Young from pet store Sept. 17.

[aokashi]

get the water tested... rule that out first...

[Frodo Bagfins]

Water Parameters:
Have you tested your water? If so, what are the following parameters?
Ammonia: 0 Ideal
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 0
pH: 7.0 acceptable
Hardness:75 soft (but we have regular water not softened water)
Alkalinity:between 180 ideal and 300 high, closer to the high (I think because it looked like a deep green instead of a yellow green)

Indigo looks brown instead of blue-black on his head and he is breathing heavily but still eating a little. He is darting and swimming fast back and forth.

Should I do a 100 % water change (that's 10 gallons)? Should I put him in an epsom salt bath? I don't think he has swim bladder but he is breathing heavy and darting.

[aokashi]

Is he bloated? if not, I recommend aquarium salt for now... His behaviour is possibly due to stress resulting from dramatic temperature changes. This could lead to other things like parasites...
many which are not visible at the early stages. is he darting against anything? is he gasping at the surface?

The doage for Aq salt is max 3 tsp/ gallon. start with 1tsp/ gallon, predissolved in tank water.
I do recommend 50% half weekly changes and 100% when u can. make sure the water temperature is the same.

if you have indian almond leaves it will help ease his discomfort

[Frodo Bagfins]

Thanks aokashi.

He isn't bloated. He isn't darting against anything just back and forth across the tank. He isn't gasping for air just goes up a little more often than usual for air. Main thing is the heavy breathing and that he looks more brown than blue-black than usual on his head and the top of his lower fin. One thing he's always had is a little lump on his head that I assume is just a defect. But it could be something worse I guess--like cancer? Maybe not though, maybe just the stress from the heater incident is still bothering him.

I don't know what it could be, but I know it's bad when they start breathing heavily. Hopefully he can recover from the damage done when the heater spiked way up in temp. My old thermometer only went to 82 so not sure how high it was but it felt really warm. Just got a new thermometer. BTW I got him a new heater as of Monday evening so that isn't a problem as his tank is staying at 78 degrees.

I am thinking I will do a 100% water change (10 gallons) and put new salt in because last time I did a 50% water change I put two tablespoons of AQ salt in which probably was too much considering there was still 5 gal that still probably had some salt from the first time I ever put salt in which was a couple weeks ago. So yea, probably best to just do a 100 % change and put the two tablespoons in. Will doing 100% mess up the cycle of the tank--the good bacteria? Oh well I think i'll just try it.

[aokashi]

oO....

make sure you measure the salt... and only replace what you change out...
how ling has he been on salt? if it's been more than 10days. best to take him off it...

[MyRainbowBettaFish]

BTW dont forget the salt MUST be dissolved!

[aokashi]

yes, predissolve the salt in a cup on tank water...

[Frodo Bagfins]

So I did a 100% water change and decided to go salt-less. He's still breathing heavy but seems happier anyway. I'll post if there are any changes.

[sareena79]

when I accidentally oversalted my boy he reacted IMMEDIATELY and I knew something was wrong and got him in fresh water asap! he started breathing very heavy and flaring his gills and raising his head out of the water. he was only in it about 30 secs before I realized he was not happy, thankfully I got him out and he recovered quickly