Need some Help With a Sickly new Betta

[Pataflafla]

I just bought this guy from Walmart tonight after attempting to tell my sister no more fish. We ended up buying two bettas (she already has 2 females and a male). For Walmart conditions the female is doing excellent. She's giant and looks fat.

The male, however, is really small, probably young, breathing heavily, bloated, and seems to have some issues with his swim bladder at the moment.

He's in a very small tank for now, since he's having so much difficulty swimming at the moment, and that tank is within a 10 gallon tank with the female in it. The bigger tank is about 1/3 of the way full with a heater in it so the heat will transfer to him as well. A filter is not hooked up for now because of the water level.

He's hidden away from the female with a lot of plants and she doesn't seem to take notice of him like she did to my sister's other bettas.

Currently he's using an artificial plant as a support so he can be near to the surface to breath.

Here's a video of how he is breathing: http://s1114.photobucket.com/albums/...urrent=004.mp4

I'd like some advice as to what I can do for him to help him get better.

[Oldfishlady]

Welcome to the forum and sorry you are having problems...

Since you just got him-I would try fresh water treatment....while in the small container floating in the heated tank...start making 100% daily water changes with dechlorinated water for a few days and see if this will perk him up....if not I would pre-mix a gal jug of dechlorinated water and add Epsom salt 2tsp/gal and tannins and use this water for the 100% daily water changes for 10-14 days

Offer a good quality food twice daily-if you have live food like mosquito larva feed=4-5- 3-4 times a day...

Keep us posted.....

[Pataflafla]

Originally Posted by Oldfishlady

Welcome to the forum and sorry you are having problems...

Since you just got him-I would try fresh water treatment....while in the small container floating in the heated tank...start making 100% daily water changes with dechlorinated water for a few days and see if this will perk him up....if not I would pre-mix a gal jug of dechlorinated water and add Epsom salt 2tsp/gal and tannins and use this water for the 100% daily water changes for 10-14 days

Offer a good quality food twice daily-if you have live food like mosquito larva feed=4-5- 3-4 times a day...

Keep us posted.....

Thanks so much. I'm planning on doing a water change this afternoon. I really do hope he gets better, he's such a pretty fish.

[Pataflafla]

Ratchet is already doing much better. He's swimming around a little more, he flared for the first time, and scared the female betta away for a little bit, as well as survived the night and his first 100% water change.

Tank temp is 78*, his may be a little cooler than that, probably around 74*.

Is reverse osmosis water a better water to use that tap water? I still dechlorinated the water, but my bettas from years ago did just fine with this water as well as no treatment to the water.