So I've had Manny for about a year now. He's a royal blue veil tail with a little red. Whenever I change his water he gets stressed and losses color which I figured was normal and when this happens you can see a white spot on his head. When he's happy and nicely colored you can't see any abnormalities. As a side note a lot of people say different things about feeding so Id like that addressed. We've been giving him 4 pellets in the am and 4 in the pm and since ive read about diet variety we've been adding about 1-2 bloodworms (freeze dried) with each meal. Today he darted around exceptionally hard and didn't move for at least 2 minutes. My GF thought he was dead for sure but I told her he gets startled sometimes and does that so to wait before we flushed him. Well he wasn't dead luckily. It scared me though because he hasn't been eating as well lately as normal. After doing a lot of reading on here I made a trip to petsmart and picked up a heater (worries me because theirs no theostat and I'm a reptile guy), a therm, some salt, new gravel, and a hut. Typically I buy him purified water and add his drops and do 100% water changes whenever it looks dirty. Usually about 10-12 days. Lately it has been looking like his water is getting almost dusty so I've been doing his water much more often. His water today is about 1.3 gallons tap with conditioner, .5 gallons purified with conditioner, and about 10 drops of API Betta fix. About a quarter to half teaspoon of salt as well. His water was about 72 degrees but today as I said I added a heater. He's looking about as good as he usually does but he's still quite lethargic and hasn't eaten yet today. Sorry for the essay but I wanted to try to provide as much detail as possible to paint the picture.
Not sure where to start...I guess what I should say that Betta are tropical fish and the temp of their water needs to be 76-82. Pellets are great and the bloodworms are more like a treat to them, I also give my Betta 4 pellets in the morning and 4 at night.
For the water changes you should be doing more than you have been because the ammonia can kill your fish or make him very sick. For your size tank I would do three 50 percent water changes and three 100 percents per week since he is not feeling well he needs extra clean water. Did you rinse the new gravel before adding it to his tank, if not that would be why his water is looking cloudy. Use the AQ salt for only 10 days or till he starts to perk up. Keep and eye on the temp of his water okay you dont want to got to hot like above 84 and it would be best of it stayed around 79. Good luck I hope he feels better soon !
I ma glad you did provide that information, but If you are just getting a heater now, do you know what the temp is in the tank, if under 76, your fishy could be getting sick, if darting, could be Ich, if you see lil white dots or patches of white on the body..if the fins show greying there is a thread on a "Mystery disease" that afflicts some blue fish..I will provide a link for that..but you will need a thermometer for temp control, should be 78-80 degrees at all times.
Water should be changed 2-3x a week in any tank/bowl under 3 gallons, at 100% or 1 50% and 1-100% in tanks over 3 gal. For proper nutrition, a good pellet is reccomended, and FD Bw's for treats only 1-2x a week is fine, as long as you don't see bloating in your fish, could be from overfeeding, but 2-3 pellets in am, and 2 at night is sufficient:)
Also be very careful with bettafix, and Melafix, it is not recomended, and can cause more harm than good, the best treatment, is warm water, frequent water changes, and if needed for external issues, AQ salt, with daily water changes, in a hospital tank, 1tsp per gallon. If your fish is breathing heavy, you need to stop the bettafix.
So the salt doesn't become a normal part of tank water? The only reason I haven't changed the water as frequently is because it seems like the plant doesn't do as good when I change it so often. I should lower his feeding to 3 pellets twice a day and blood worms every few days? I always rinse the rocks and agitate them pretty good with every water change. His tank water before was about 70 degrees. Now it should be about 75 and rising. I didn't know the Betta fix was so bad it seems to usually help if his fins thin out. Right now his little fins that he flaps all the time are pretty thin and colorless. He doesn't look anything like that awful pic though. He looks alright now I'm just a little concerned about if I've been neglecting him when I thought I was doing good. I think the heater is a good addition but it doesn't have any control on it. My snake tank has a thermostat at least on his or her heating pads.
Idk where thier bladders are but he's also kinda hour glass shaped. It looks like if I squeeze his butt he'd pop like a blister. Is that a sign of bloat or swim bladder infection?
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