Swim Bladder problem

[finarda]

My Betta fish (Rio) appears to have Swim Bladder Disorder. He can't move properly and was just flopping on his side on the bottom and having trouble aiming where he wants to swim. His belly is all swollen.

I moved him to a shallow 5 gallon tank by himself with a couple of silk plants to rest on. I fasted him for a couple of days then fed him a bit of pea. No poop. I tried again the next day but later noticed that he had spat up the pea from both days undigested. He's just sitting on his butt looking up but barely moving except to occasionally reach up for some air. What more can I do? Should I try an antibiotic? An epsom salt bath (if so, how - I've read conflicting methods)? Anything else? How long can he go without eating - it's been 4-5 days so far.

[finarda]

This is a photo of him currently. My fish shop suggested Maracyn 2 so I tried that starting yesterday.



And this was a photo of him shortly after we first got him a year or so ago (the algae eaters had been nibbling on his fins but they look fine now)

[xjenuhfur]

What are you feeding him and how much are you feeding?
Do Epsom salt treatments, 1-2 tsp per gallon and fasting. He should recover in a few days. You can also feed him frozen daphnia to help him poo. :)

[finarda]

Thanks so much for responding - I was worried no-one was going to help as he looks like he's on his last legs (fins?).

We feed him Betta flakes, although he also eats the tetras sinking pellets and the algae flakes (on the rare occasion that we use them). He eats everything. I think the problem was that I was away for two weeks and was then sick for a week so my daughter took over feeding all our fish and she overfed them (the algae was built up when I got back too).

But right now he's not eating anything - he spit all (vomited?) the peas I gave him back up a day or two later.

I have just now tried the bath so we'll see how it goes. I didn't want to move him out of his QT as it stressed him out and I'd seen someone recommend just adding the epsom salts to his QT. However various places said to put the salt and him in a separate bath for 20 mins so that's what I did.

[xjenuhfur]

Well peas don't really do anything for bettas. As they are carnivores. But you should def stick to feeding him pellets, and he def doesn't need the algae flakes. The flakes usually cause bloat and sbd, only feed him 2-3 pellets a day twice a day. And fast one a week to help food move through his system. I'm gonna direct you here and just scroll to the sbd part. :) he should be okay in the qt tank with regular water changes. Just make sure you don't continue salt treatments for more than 14 days. :)