Constipation Issues... Again? *sigh*

[Amour]

Ugh... I keep having problems with constipation in my beloved fishies. Now my halfmoon, Calaf, has a big fat tummy and is bottom sitting.

I tried feeding him the tiniest bit of pea, and it didn't help.

Maybe I'm making the pea wrong? I put it in a little sauce cup in hot water in the microwave for 30 seconds. And then I take the shell off and squish a little into my finger and feed the tiniest bit to him mashed up.

I keep having this problem with my fish. I soak their pellet before giving it to them. And I only give them one, two times a day.

Also, my crown tail was really bloated and I thought he was constipated, and someone said they fed their betta a whole half a pea. And so I gave him one that big and it got stuck inside him and my husband had to push it out of him.

So I don't think feeding a whole half a pea is good for your betta.

I'm really tired of my fish getting constipated all the time. I don't know what to do about it.

[1fish2fish]

Are you sure its constipation? Its possible it could be internal parasites. You might want to try treating them with an anti-parasitic and see if that cleans them out. Be careful feeding them while you treat them because its easy for them to get blocked up while the parasites are flushed out.

You might also want to try epsom salt or frozen/live daphnia as a laxative.

[noenyu]

My fish Taco seems to be constipated for the second time. I feed him 2 pellets in the morning and a freeze dried bloodworm or two in the afternoon. I recently stopped feeding him the freeze dried bloomworms as soon as I saw him getting the belly. I'm not sure if it's happened to anyone else but I think they're causing the constipation.

What I do is the pea thing. Put it in a microwavable cup with water and microwave for 2mins. I take it out of the shell, put it on the plate and mash it/cut it up with a toothpick until they're about the size of a pellet. I feed him a little less then half the pea. They seem to sink really fast so he doesn't get all of it all the time. You can try not feeding him for a couple of days to see if it clears out on its own. I read that epsom salt can help, like 1fish2fish said. I also read that you shouldn't use aquarium salts when betta's are constipated. It makes them absorb water. Hope that can help.

[Amour]

I actually am treating them for parasites at the moment. So I think my mistake was feeding them while I was treating them.

I fasted Calaf and he's looking a lot better this morning. Until I'm finished with all the treatment and I see their tons of poop, they have to go hungry.

Thanks for the advise guys. (:

[1fish2fish]

You don't have to completely fast them.. maybe do 1 pellet a day. What food are you using? If you got a smaller pellet like New Life Spectrum Betta or NLS Grow it might be easier for him to digest while under treatment because the pellets are small.

[Kokonoko]

I'm mildly confused, I thought you weren't suppose to feed them peas regardless of its laxative-like-response? Somehow the pea would do more damage of some sort than it would to help out?

[1fish2fish]

There are two schools of thought.

One is that since bettas are insectivores that feeding a vegetable will be hard on their systems because they aren't designed to process food like that. These people usually opt for daphnia or mysis shrimp instead of pea.

The other is that since the pea helps and its only used once in a while its ok.

I don't think anyone should feed pea weekly. A healthy fish shouldn't need a laxative, a fast day is all they should need. If you feed pea once to try to treat constipation and it doesn't work I would move on.

[Amour]

I feed them Omega One Betta Buffet pellets, and today bought some flakes to see if maybe they're easier to digest. I soak the pellet before I feed them though.

[1fish2fish]

I think the omega one pellets are really big. You might want to try crushing them and feeding the pieces instead of the whole pellet.