Tales of a blind betta

[Hershey]

Maybe you should not feed him at all. they can go up to 2 weeks without food.

[AyalaCookiejar]

I feed him every time the bloating goes down. He bloats very easily. I already feed him very little.

[AyalaCookiejar]

Bahari's bloated/floating problems are nonexistent today and I fed him today. I started soaking his pellets in metro so that must have done the trick - I hope, lol.

I also think he has problems with his smell along with his site. I have to get the food to literally touch his mouth for him to find it. It can be a hair away from his mouth and he won't find it. He also sometimes misses when he snaps at it even if I do get it to touch his mouth, and I'm very nervous to feed him with a skewer ever since that time he latched on to it, ha.

[rebeccaodell]

beautiful, I just started with betta myself but I will have to agree from what I have read so far dirty water couldn't have helped

[AyalaCookiejar]

With his blindness? I am just assuming that was genetic. I keep up on water changes religiously.

Good news, though. I got home today and he was sitting on the bottom of the tank taking a big poo (TMI? Lol.) I know he wasn't sick, he just isn't as active since he's blind. He swam to the top when I opened the lid as he always does but he had to get around his plants lol.

This is exciting because he's had such bad buoyancy issues that he usually can't swim downwards and he also gets bloated easily and doesn't poo as often as he should (and its usually HUGE). Hopefully the metro and Kanaplex soaked pellets are what's helping this.

[AyalaCookiejar]

Wow, I fed him two pellets today around 3pm and by 6ish he wasn't floating. I consider this a miracle. I've also started to just drop the food right above his mouth - I usually drop in a few so that he'll find at least one, and I keep the turkey bastor right by so I can suck up any pellets before they sink. This seems to be working better than the skewer, since I'm still afraid to use it since he latched onto it that one time. He's got algae growing in his tank, which I am assuming is from excess nutrients caused by the fallen food, so I'm being careful not to let any fall at all if I can help it.

He's also got pretty torn and tattered fins with quite a few rips. I'm not sure if he's fin biting from boredom or if he's getting injured running into things. He's still very lethargic and doesn't move much on his own besides when he is snapping at bubbles on the surface.

Hopefully this stays this way with him not having the buoyancy issues for 24+ hours after he eats. I'm going to start soaking all his pellets in VitaChem and its also added to the water which I hope will help his fins. I don't see any signs of rot.

This may just be a case if very bad genetics, especially with his blindness and chronic SBD issues. I wish I could do more for him. I honestly don't know how long he is going to live, but I'll give him the best hope I can until his time comes. He's a lucky blind Betta in his own 5 gallon tank :p I plan to maybe remove his caves and place more silk plants in his tank so he has more places to rest near the surface because he often just settles for the substrate.

I might be turning off his light more to combat the algae issue. He's blind anyways so I don't know that it will matter. Hopefully I will see more improvement in his SBD issues and I'm really hoping that he will maybe become more active. At least he hasn't come down with any more serious diseases, yet, which makes me glad because I don't think his immune system is probably very strong.

[AyalaCookiejar]

Before I fed him today he was floating again, and now he is not, again. He had a water change today and he wasn't swimming around to check stuff out like usual. I also removed and cleaned the decor that was growing algae and I ended up not putting the rainbow cave back in the tank. I want to remove the coral cave as well when my live plants for my ten gallon grow in and I can transfer some silk plants to his tank. He seems to rest on the bottom a lot so I'd like more tall silk plants so it would be easier to find places near the surface.

He's just getting more lethargic. He's definitely not very old but I don't really expect him to reach the average life span. He's just super sensitive to everything. I keep seeing pet store bettas that I really want to take home, but his bad genetics have really put me off pet store bettas completely. I love him, but I know that he won't ever have a normal life. I wonder if this is what it's like to have a mentally handicapped child (okay, I know fish and children aren't near the same but I don't ever plan on actual kids so my bettas, cats, and my dog are like my children, and he's the most worrisome of all).

It just kind of sucks that he's one of the lucky ones and he can't really enjoy it to its fullest. (Lucky meaning he actually has a five gallon tank to himself, a heater, good quality food, access to meds, VitaChem, blah, blah...) At least he didn't go home with a clueless/careless owner who would give him a 1/2 gallon tank and never observe him closely enough to find out the reason he wasn't eating was because he was blind.. It even took me two weeks to figure that out. I'm almost sure many others would let him starve to death just thinking that he was a stupid picky eater.

/rant