Something's wrong with my little girl...

[XxxXnoodleXxxX]

Got three images.





Her color is coming back a bit, but she's still swimming with her head down all the time. Could be swim bladder, but I don't know how to treat that when everything is closed.

[Bluewind]

Good Water Quality and Warmth. These 2 things will cure most problems. Have you done the pwc yet?

After you fast her a day or 2, you can feed her a cooked and pealed english pea which has been shown to help in some studies.

Keep in as little stress as you can. I know you will want to cup her and do the huge pwc, but cupping can be stressful. You can do a good 50% pwc without cupping as long as you turn off the filter while doing it and slowly pour in the water on the wall so as to avoid a current. Get the water the right tenp and even use a termomter before doing it. That will make it much less stressful on her.
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[callistra]

Bluewind the OP has already stated they did a 100% change.

I would not feed a pea. I really don't see much problem with her belly/size but she is obviously stressed. She's also holding herself just fine right there.

I would fast and treat with epsom salts and monitor poop. You'll have to wait until stores open.. epsom salts can be found in pharmacys and pharmacy sections of grocery stores.

[XxxXnoodleXxxX]

Originally Posted by callistra

Bluewind the OP has already stated they did a 100% change.

I would not feed a pea. I really don't see much problem with her belly/size but she is obviously stressed. She's also holding herself just fine right there.

I would fast and treat with epsom salts and monitor poop. You'll have to wait until stores open.. epsom salts can be found in pharmacys and pharmacy sections of grocery stores.

Yeah she's lost a lot of color. She only has her head down when she's holding herself stationary now. She can swim about through the whole tank, and neither spends all her time at the top nor bottom.

I'll keep an eye on her and not feed her for a day. And I'll get epsom salts asap tomorrow just in case. She's glass surfing a bit now, and exploring her tank. So that's good. Any other recommendations?

[callistra]

Not at this point.. report back on poop.

[Bluewind]

I thought she said the had done a pwc, but I am reading this off my phone and have walked a few people through emergencies tonight so I wasn't 100%. Peas are for constipation, this is true, but I have read articles where they can also be used to help with swim bladder issues. This would of corse would only be something to try if improvement wasn't happening with pwc, salt, and fasting.
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[XxxXnoodleXxxX]

It may be worth noting that she had a big coiler poop in her container while I was doing the 100% water change.

[Bluewind]

Well, if she shows no signs of odd boyancy or other physical changes, I would skip the salt and just go with the 50% PWCs and gravel cleaning. It might have all been caused by a nasty Amonia spike. Salt is an amazing medicine and should be kept on hand, but because bettas have a laberenth organ, we have to be very careful with it as too much salt or giving it to them for to long (most say 10 days of consecutive treatment is the max) can damage it. Just like us and our perscriptions

There are several different types of salt you can use (table salt is NOT one of them) and I have see how well they work! They can treat so many fishy problems as long as you're careful. I always do half-doses to be safe, but I'm also over cautious.

Also, yea fish poop!

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[callistra]

Epsom salt is not the same as aquarium salt. It's perfectly safe to use for a long time, some say indefinitely. It's used to fertilize plants and is an ingredient in several products to remineralze water, including Seachem Products.

[XxxXnoodleXxxX]

Update: color is all back, she's super energetic, and doesn't seem to have buoyancy problems. My guess is the little bit of rust was bothering her because her water was quite cloudy. Then when I did the 100% change she got super stressed and constipated. She probably pooped last night and is all fine now.