I need to talk about Kevin.

[londonjoker]

Hi... We got Kevin on christmas eve. He's had a 25l Fluval Chi all to himself and has been a happy chappy. He eats frozen foods lil capsule thigs (bout 1 over 3-4 days). He has been having 20% water changes every 2 weeks and all has been groovy. He would race to the surafce whenever we called him and would be really comfortable around us. However, 2 weeks ago, we noticed that under the srone/rocks was really grubby so we decided on a full change. Newer (smaller) stones, weeds etc. I didn't save any original water which I now know was i bit of a twatty thing to do. After a brief period of being stressed out, he seemed back to his old self. But, he soon became lethargic. Sat at the bottom of his tank, hid in his house all day or sat on the heater. We notices the water being colder than usual so though the fluval heater was not working so baught a delta therm (currently at 25 degrees).
Now Kevin sits on top of his house or behind it or in it. He has lost his 'va va voom' Its like he ignores us. We had advice that he may me over fed and to relax on the feeding for a while. We have added a chappaatta leaf to see if he digs it. He's just not the same fish.
He does look a lil bit paler with some discolouration around the fins. Gonna do my best to upload a picture or two.
Would, really, REALLY love any advice.
Thanks y'all
(From two worried fishy parents in London)

[aokashi]

Aww poor little clampy fishies :( try slowly bringing up the temperature from 25-27.5 at a gradual rate of 1C/day.
Have you tested his water parameters? will he flare at his own reflection? any other strange behaviour like sudden darting and scratching against rocks? how often did you feed him? and what kinds of food?

[londonjoker]

Originally Posted by aokashi

Aww poor little clampy fishies :( try slowly bringing up the temperature from 25-27.5 at a gradual rate of 1C/day.
Have you tested his water parameters? will he flare at his own reflection? any other strange behaviour like sudden darting and scratching against rocks? how often did you feed him? and what kinds of food?

am gonna increase the temp from 24 to 25 today. the previous heater was preset to 24 but never seemed to heat that much. it was sold to me when i baugh the chi. kevin would sit on it for ages. we thought he may be overeating as any excess food is now easier for him to get to as he has smaller gravel at the bottom of his tank. we are trying to not feed him til later today although he seems pissed off. i did read that dypthia is good for bettas to poop. we have been using the frozen foods that come in lil cubes. one over 3 days. he seems to be in direct sunlight so have put up a screen to shield the sun from him. is that ok???? we are going to take a sample of water to the pet store later.
its very sad. he just doesnt seem like the kevin we know and love. i was also concerned about the light patches (hopefully the pictures show this)
any ideas??
thanks in advance

[aokashi]

Sunlight will heat the water and can cause uneccessary temperature fluctuations. I would move the entire tank away, or some how avoid the external heat. My guess was that the water changes stressed him out quite a bit. then and a disease or parasite crept up on him before he recovered. Stress = low immune system. disease takes a bit to manifest so he was back to normal again before the illness caught up with him and hes now one unhappy fish

a good average for feeding is 4 pellets a day, 2 separate feedings, 2 pellets a feeding, unless you are using new life spectrums tiny pellets then well... a good way to measure is by the size of his eye, thats how big his stomach is, and you dont want to feed more than the size of Kevin's eye :)

Ive never fed mine frozen food. but if you meant by one frozen cube of blood worms, I would feed him 4 blood worms a day after defrosting a cube, as that is what I do with my freeze dried blood worms on "treat day" now im not sure if frozen food can provide him enough nutrients, hopefullysomeone will come along and tell you the answer to that. pellets are usually formulated and balnced nutritionally for bettas. Dont spoil him too much! he only knows whats yummy and when to complain lol

definitely uncrease his temperature for now. if you do confirm that its parasites such as ich or velvet you can go all the way up to 29.

I dont see any light spots :( can you check the fish reallll closely and see if he has any white dots (like salt) on him or when you shine a flash light on him, are there areas that look like he's been dusted gold/bronze?

I would probably at this stage move him to a salt bath. 1tsp Aquarium salt to 4L of dechlorinated water. see if you can find a container to float in his tank for the heating. premeasure the water in a separate container so that the dosage is correct :). You can throw a leaf in the smaller container. water should look like tea. im guessing the fluval is too bui for the leaf to take full effect. "just a guess, dont really know how many you put in. just to double check, these are Ketapang/indian almond leaves right?

[Fishehgobloop]

Hello :)

Your betta looks healthy in those pictures, aside from being a little bit on the pudgy side. ^^ That's alright, cause I have a couple fish who are piggies and get pudgy really easy (I would recommend maybe feeding your fish something like pellets or freeze-dried foods that are easier to portion control if your fish may be over eating)
When you did your full water change, did you put all of the same plants and decorations in? I see that you changed the gravel/stones, but did you change out other decor as well? Your problem could be as simple as your fishie just doesn't like his new set up as well as the last one.
If your water temperature never seemed to affect your fish before, it may not be the problem now. Have you tried using a stress coat when you change your fish's water? Also, is your fish showing any other behavioral changes, or is he acting sick at all?

[TheCheese909]

To me it seems he might not like his new tank setup very much, and is just upset with you. I have had and have known Bettas who are very touchy about their home being moved around and have acted the same way. He might get used to it he might not.

If you want, what i would suggest anyway is changing the tank once more -not the water, just the decor- changing the water too much can really screw up the chemistry of the water and stress him out too much.

I don't know what kind of decorations you have in with him but I suggest plenty of plants and places for him to explore. NO plastic plants as they will tear up your Bettas fins unless they are super soft (and even then, i've seen them destroy finnage). My Bettas LOVE to hang out in the plants, so thats a good place to start. If you can find a Betta Log (http://s3.amazonaws.com/tc-photos/11...ard/521971.jpg) he might really like that. I have one for one of my fish and he loves it. It took him a little while to figure out what it was, but now he hangs out in it and sleeps there and everything.

I also suggest buying some Stress Coat(http://thegirlwithfish.files.wordpre...tress-coat.jpg), which also has water conditioner in it- so it's a 2 in one. He doesn't appear to have any stress stripes, but sometimes any loss of color can mean he's a bit upset. I would say about a cap full and maybe over the next few days half a cap. It's helped out my fish tremendously -i have 9 males- one of witch gets stressed out extremely easily.

Also, try looking for some bacteria supplement, it helps boost the immune system of the tank and gets the tank started on a better foot. You add that stuff when you do a water change, add your dechlorinator/stress coat then wait about 15 minutes or so and add some of that bactera supplement. Wait another 15 minutes or so for the tank to acclimate itself then go ahead and add your betta.

If he doesn't eat for a few days don't be alarmed. Bettas can live a full month without food (but don't ever not feed him for that long lol). When he's hungry he will eat- I would buy him a small ghost shrimp (typically only about 85 cents) and put it in the tank for live food. It's okay if he doesn't eat it right away, shrimps can do wonders for your tank. Also, maybe try other foods with him, freeze dried brine shrimp, freeze dried blood worms, frozen blood worms and different types of pellets. Give him some yummy goodness for a little while so he thinks that this new home of his is better, so he'll be happier.

I hope this helps. :)

[Tobythefish]

In the second picture, it looks like there is some fuzz on him. I don't know what it could be, just wanted to point that out.

[londonjoker]

Thank you to all replied to my post. I am going to do a 20% water change, add the specified amount of stress coat and feed him a minimum of pellets and see what happens. I will also increase the temperature (slowly each day). I will add to this post to let folk know how things are going.
once again thanks to one and all

[TheCheese909]

@TobyTheFish, I saw that too but I figured i think its just a bad picture, if you notice the rock and the glass has it too.

@londonjoker, I hope it helps!