What is wrong with our Betta?

[edie]

We just purchased our 3rd Betta in a matter of weeks. We had the first one for a couple of months but he died when we went away at christmas [my husband turned the heating off!]. We brought another and a small heater 50w, it was at 80 and the fish stopped swimming and was hanging at the bottom of the tank, i turned the heater down- he was dead the next morning. i must say that Betta did not look very healthy when we brought him [petco].
we purchased a third very healthy looking fishy and i cleaned the tank with hot water, added new tap water and dechlorinated the water, set the heater to 78 but he looks very sad hanging at the top with his fins tightly to his body. i fed him two tiny pellets of food this morning and he swam up from the bottom but he does not appear to be swimming with his top or back fins just the ones next to his face. could he be sick already? i do not know what our ph is but i have given him a couple of water changes in a week. i have fed him a couple of pellets a day and he is eating well.

[bettababy]

A few questions before anyone will be able to offer much help:
What size container is he in?
How much decoration is in it? Any type of cave or tunnel he can hide in?
What are the water params for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, pH?

I know you said you didn't know the pH in the water, but the other 3 are just as important to check. Most LFS's will test water for free if you take it in, but you'll need about 1 cup full in a zip lock baggie and it will need to be tested within an hour of removing it from the bowl/tank.
Without knowing your water params, and the other info I have requested, there isn't much else anyone can offer for help or even suggestions. Those test results will tell us alot!

When you change his water, is the new water the same temp as in the bowl? You might want to consider letting it stand in a bucket in the same room for at least 1 hr before using it. One method that has helped many of my customers in the past: Buy 1 bottle of RO water, use it without water conditioner for cleaning the bowl/tank. When the RO water is gone, fill it with tap water, treat it with water conditioner (be careful not to overdose this stuff, it does funky things to the water that will harm the fish and is hard to fix). Let that bottle of water sit overnight before using it. When it's empty or near empty, rinse it out and repeat.

One last question... is there any way you can post a picture of your betta? It is not uncommon to see them come in on shipment and suffer from various fungal and bacterial infections right away at the store. Very few stores will medicate or even recognize the signs of illness, and many stores don't clean them enough to keep them healthy. It is very possible that your fish could be sick for any number of reasons, but your description of the situation is not always enough for us to help from so far away. Pictures are always a good way for us to see what is going on first hand. Some things are more obvious to us because we've seen them and dealt with them before.

[edie]

I am sorry but the pictures too bad to post. But he looks very healthy, his skin looks good he is not bloated, his eyes look good and his color is good.
He swims well apart from the fact that his back tail does not flare out at all, it is pulled in and his upper fin is slightly bent over and his lower fin is pulled in as well. He is more perky than he was yesterday and seems excited when he see someone, he is also very enthusiastic about food. but his tail does not flare at all when he sees himself in a mirror?
I purchased him just as he had been delivered to the store and he looked great until i got hold of him.
I have him in a large glass bowl, i think it is either 1.5 or 2 gallons, with gravel a couple of shells and a plastic plant and a heater.
i will get the water tested tomorrow and i plan on getting bettamax and a cave for him....

[bettababy]

While waiting to hear what your water params are, I would strongly suggest removing the shells from his bowl. Shells break down over time when they are in water, and they tend to raise pH and leech calcium and carbonates into the water, none of which is good for a betta.