Having trouble swimming, I'm very confused

[ChelseaK]

Housing
What size is your tank? 55 gal
What temperature is your tank? 78
Does your tank have a filter? Yes
Does your tank have an air stone or other type of aeration? Yes
Is your tank heated? Yes
What tank mates does your betta fish live with? Other female betas, platy, glofish, clown loach

Food
What type of food do you feed your betta fish? Pellets/flakes
How often do you feed your betta fish? 1-2 times a day

Maintenance
How often do you perform a water change?
What percentage of the water do you change when you perform a water change?
What type of additives do you add to the water when you perform a water change?

Water Parameters:
Have you tested your water? If so, what are the following parameters?
Have not recently, but I did a water change 2 days ago and the parameters were...
Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 20
pH:7.2
Hardness: Hard (I hate these test strips)
Alkalinity: 120

Symptoms and Treatment
How has your betta fish's appearance changed? Appearance has not changed
How has your betta fish's behavior changed? She wiggles his tail fin a lot, almost like my clown loach, but is having trouble swimming to the top and when he gets to the top, she is almost vertical when taking in air.
When did you start noticing the symptoms? Just now
Have you started treating your fish? If so, how? I put in some "Quick Fix" in a floating cup
Does your fish have any history of being ill? Nope.
How old is your fish (approximately)? 5 months

Now that she's resting in his cup, he's literally resting on the bottom a bit. It's very strange, I've never seen any of my fish do this before. I'm hoping that she'll be okay till I get home. Any ideas?

[Anitax3x]

I have the same problem. It seems to have to do with constipation causing SBD. I have my female ruby in epsom salt solution around 84 F and I do 100% water changes daily. She has seen some improvements but then again the best thing is time. Try fasting and doing the epsom salt 1tsp/1gal mixture . It has a laxative effect and may help.

[ChelseaK]

I'll give that a shot, but this isn't like SBD. I've dealt with that before, but this is different. But I will definitely try epsom and see what happens.

[Anitax3x]

I have the SAME problem. I have delt with SBD and I was so confused. This girl has been chronically ill however. She came home from petsmart bloated with sbd and she was just floating and couldnt get to the bottom. Now she's liek propping herself up on her tail and sitting on it. It's so weird. But everyone Told me to keep doing the epsom salt. Since its only been 2 days, they say to wait it out =(. So wait I shall. But try it. Hopefully it works =)

[Marshall]

My betta has the same problem as well.. I have been doing salt treatment for almost a week now yet no signs of improvement. =(

[ChelseaK]

He seems normal, as far as his attitude, it's just that he seems to not be able to swim well at all. Or float towards the top even. I have him in a small cup floating, but I'm worried that he's not getting to even the top of that cup for air very well.

[ChelseaK]

It's not swim bladder. I'm wondering if he just has a buoyancy issue that he won't ever get over. He's making bubble nests in floating cup and eats normal and even swims around fairly normal in the cup, but then he rests on the bottom.

ANy thoughts?

[dramaqueen]

I know this is kind of late but I had a fish that had chronic swimbladder problems. They aren't in any pain and can swim normally one day and the next day they're floating. If it's chronic then just keep the water level down a bit to make it easier for him to swim up and down.

[ChelseaK]

Thanks for the post. What makes me think it isn't swim bladder is that he doesn't float to the top. In fact, he doesn't float at all. He literally rests his butt on the bottom if his cup haha. But I know what you mean about the chronic swim bladder. I think I have a couple of those two. One of them beig a boy that wa in the sorority thatis now in his own divided tank but it's like I couldn't trust him to self-feed at feeding time in the sorority and so he would bloat and float ( haha). And these are all siblings in the sorority that is why there were a couple males in there, I wasn't sure if they were males yet or not. Everyone is fine, no fighting, and they are all sorte now, just to clarify :)

But back to my problem fish, I've pretty much resolved that I will be keeping him in a very small tank of his own with lLots of things toward re surface to rest on. I think that's the best solution that I can think of at this point.

[ChelseaK]

Sorry grammar is so bad, I was typing on my phone.