Veritcal Betta

[Algy]

I just received some bettas from thailand. all of which are adapting well to their new environment. But i have this one male betta where he is just sitting in the tank vertical sometimes. I notice he didnt eat very much or at all when I tried to feed him the first few days when I got him. Today he ate as much as the other bettas so that was a good sign. What bothers me is that he is not as active as the others and i occasionally find him swimming on the bottom of the tank a lot or just close to the surface of the water. right now hes kinda vertical towards the top of the water.

Whats wrong with him?

All the bettas are getting the same treatment of water and they are all fine. I use tap water with water conditioner plus a lil bit of aquarium salt.

[turtle10]

How did you adjust him to the new water/home?

[Algy]

Well i slowly inserted the bag he came in into his new home of water so the temp would be the same. after that i would take a lil bit of water from the tank and put it into the bag of water hes in and just slowly keep doing that after about 4 to 5min until he has a good amount of new tank water to adapt to, then i just dump him in. keep in mind i do this in small amounts of adding water and a few mins between so there arent any abrupt changes.

[turtle10]

Okay well he is probably be suffering from shock. With imported bettas the adjustment period should last a few hours, many people take around 24 whole hours to let them adjust.

How long did you have the bag in the water before you put the new water in? You should have waited 20-30 minutes for the temperature to adjust. Slowly putting it in does nothing, temperature can't change that fast.

BTW 4-5 minutes is NOT slow when adjusting fish. Even with a locally bought fish I take around 1-2 hours to adjust them to the new water.

[Algy]

Okay thats probably where I messed up. Is that why he is sorta vertical? Whats up with the submarine swimming he is doing down low all the time?

[turtle10]

Maybe, the shock could have messed with his Swim Bladder. What do you mean by going down low?

[Algy]

He just likes swimming down low on the bottom of the tank. Sometimes he looks like hes gonna go belly up but usually once i get up close to the tank he gets upright again. I find him just laying on his belly kinda off to the side tilting a bit too.

[turtle10]

Yeah that definitely seems like a swim bladder issue. I would pm Oldfishlady for help on this.

[Algy]

I notice just today that he is swimming a lot more but now comparing the three seperate tanks the bettas are in.. for some reason after doing water changes to all of the three tanks.. there are bubbles accumulating all around the tank but im sure thats normal. after about a day all the bubbles disappear but for some reason, the tank of the betta that was sitting vertical still has bubbles??? Out of all the tanks his only does. I prepare all the water the same so what gives?? All of them have 1 plant in their tank and some pebbles.