Twitchy Lulu

[Luimeril]

not really an emergency, but i'm a bit concerned.

my PK female, Lulu. she's been kinda twitchy lately. :/ i'll often hear rustling in the rocks, then see her swimming up, or see her darting about in her tank. she's a big ol' gal, so if she'd lost weight, i'd have noticed, and her poos are fine, so i don't think it's parasites. she had an outbreak of ick a few months back, but i got rid of that fast, and have been on the lookout for it since. i shine a light on my bettas once every few days, checking for signs of ick, velvet, or anything i wouldn't normally notice, and she's a clean gal.

the only other thing that'd different about her, is she keeps the vertical "breeding" stripes ALL the time. she can't in any way see any of my males, and my three females are on different sides of the room, with Lulu by my boys, Chappy on my dresser, and Caroline on my computer desk. i keep the betts on my table separated by things like blank pocket folders so they can't in any way see them, and they rarely ever even see each other at any time, so i don't get why the bars are there.

she lives in a two gallon, with the heater at 70. i change her water once every three days, at 100%. i clean the rocks and her super huge pink plant with water as hot as i can stand it. she's fed once a day, with eather New Life Spectrum Grow, Betta Formula, Attison's betta pellets, Hikari Betta Bio-gold, or crushed Wardley's Betta pellets. i give her a treat of a few freeze-dried blood worms once in a while, but never more than one day a week.

i'm worried about my big gal. i'd wanted to divide a 10 gallon between her, and my baby HMPK, Chappy, but i don't want to if she's sick, or anything. :<

[Betta Slave]

She might have parasites in her gills... does it look like she's trying to scratch herself on the rocks? If she's swimming all over the place in short jutting motions, that could be it... also, if you watch her for a bit- does she shake her head or seem to try and cough something up?

[Luimeril]

nope. i often stare at my bettas for long periods of time. >.>; they mostly stare back, then go about their business. she'll be swimming fine, perfectly normally, then suddenly twitch, or dart off. she doesn't try to scratch herself against anything, or shake her head/cough. like, at this very moment, she's resting in her Giant Pink Plant, but a bit ago, she was cruising around normally, wiggling at me, doing normal betta things.

[Betta Slave]

Hmm... I'm not sure what's wrong. :/

Hope someone can help you soon!

[Luimeril]

x-X she's stumped me, too! i just worry alot about my bettas, after losing two in a row. ;A;

[Oldfishlady]

She may be cold at 70F...up your temp to at least 76F and make some 50% daily water changes for a couple of days and see if that will help...

[c4talys7]

One of my Betta fish did that too, but he was in a small 1gal before. Turns out the ammonia levels were too high. Do you take out the food that she doesn't eat? Decaying food and poos cause ammonia. A lot of people know this but I just found out :)

[Luimeril]

oops! did i type 70? Dx i meant 80. .____. i'll up her water changes to every other day. think that'll help? ;A; my poor Lulu. she usually eats all the pellets i put in(she's a bit of a piggy), but it's possible she missed some.

[c4talys7]

Yeah, just something to think about. Otherwise I'm not really sure what's up with her.

[Luimeril]

i gotta change two tanks tonight(Caroline and Hyde's. Hyde is also ill, which i'll post about in a sec), so i'll change hers as well, see if that helps her. :< thank you all. x-X