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Rapid Gill movement and Lethargy

3082 Views 39 Replies 5 Participants Last post by  Veloran, 
C
Alright so gather round and let me hear your input. My female betta has been having some issues lately and while I think I have a hunch whats going on I'd like other more experienced individuals input.

My baby has scales growing over her eyes and this has been making things a bit more complicated as she refuses to surface feed and will only eat food once it's reached the bottom, so I'm nervous about her weight as that's dropped considerably.(Ive read about the feeding rings that some people use so I'm considering giving this a go if its been done with success by anyone)

In the past two weeks she has started staying on the bottom and in the last few days shes begun have rapid gill movements along with mouth opening and closing. She remains either wedged between the filter or a plant or she is laying on the bottom with her head down and body in an s like shape. Its hard to describe I'll attempt to get her picture while I wait for a ride to the store.

Housing
Size: 3.5 gallon
Temperature: 72-80 degrees
Filter: yes sponge
air stone or other type of aeration?: No
Heated: Yes
Betta mates in aquarium: None

Food
Betta food: Aqeuon Betta food with no color
How often do you feed your betta fish?: Twice a day

Maintenance
How often do you perform a water change?: Evey weeks
What percentage of the water do you change when you perform a water change?: 100%
What type of additives do you add to the water when you perform a water change?:aquasafe

Water Parameters:
Have you tested your water? If so, what are the following parameters?
To be filled out tonight: I need to run to pet store and have the water checked as I just ran out of test strips!
Ammonia:
Nitrite:
Nitrate:
pH:
Hardness:
Alkalinity:

Symptoms and Treatment

-Betta fish's appearance changed?: Am noticing some raised areas on her sides, not in a dropsy manner but in a 'need to get better at finding my food'manner. She has scales growing over her eyes and they're making it difficult for her to find food so I'm worried this could be her getting skinny! :(

-Betta fish's behavior changed?: Lethargy that has been getting worse over the past two weeks, no longer swimming about energetically. She remains on the bottom or wedged between things. She does have rapid gill and mouth movements in a gasping motion.

-When did you start noticing the symptoms?: The lethargy about two weeks ago the gasping started several days ago and its getting worse

-Have you started treating your fish? If so, how?: No

-Does your fish have any history of being ill?: Not unless you count the fin rot I've been fighting with since I got her.

-How old is your fish (approximately)?: if she was a year when I got her she would be considered 2 years old now.

Thank you for your time.
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Veloran
First thing I'd do is to change her water, and start changing it more frequently, add a 50% change during the week. Since you have a filter running, I'd get the water checked at the LFS (get values) to check to see if your tank cycled or if those 100% changes prevented it from cycling. For now you want to stop doing the 100% changes to let the tank cycle, but you have to use a gravel vac to clean the tank.

I'd also get some Seachem Prime and start using that as your water conditioner. Also upgrade her food to New Life Spectrum or Omega One.

Can you post a picture so we can see if anything else might be going on with her. Also, have you seen the color of her poop?
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C
Change food and water primer got it.
I thought you couldn't cycle a smaller tank? I'll have to look up the directions for the cycling procedure I'm sure its here! Thank you for your help I really appreciate it I know a lot of these threads don't get a lot of answers.
Attached are pictures of my lil girl and now that I'm seeing a clear image of her not moving from above does that look like a case of popeye to you?! I thought it was just because the scales had grown over. And final answer: No poop spotted recently which is another concern of mine.

Water Organism Fish


Green Water Close-up Glass Circle


Fish Glass Fish Tail
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Veloran
She's a little bigger than I expected, I'm not very familiar with symptoms on the females. I'm not entirely sure why she looks so big on her body.

Looks like it might be early stage of popeye, nothing that's uncurable. Let's keep her water warm and clean (you need to keep the temperature stable, preferably between 78 - 80 degrees) and see how she responds to that for a couple of days. I don't want to start her on epsom salt or antibiotics until we have a better idea on what's going on with her.

You can cycle her tank, take a read below and feel free to post any questions you may have. It might be beneficial to start a thread in the habitats and accessories section for assistance.

We do try to get to as many of these posts as we can, unfortunately, sometimes you have to wait for someone with experience in your particular problem to have time and come across the thread.

http://www.bettafish.com/showthread.php?t=111960
http://www.bettafish.com/showthread.php?t=107771
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C
Shes my first girl so I have no clue either! Maybe another user with girl bettas will know more about the problem and post?
Ughhh popeye, I feel silly my poor girl getting popeye! I wish I would have been home more the past few weeks now then I would have noticed all this sooner.

I didn't want to start epsom salt so soon so I agree fully with you on that, though do you think I should give her a few days fast to clear out any threat of constipation or should I be checking for cysts with a flashlight?

There are a lot and I wish I could help out in them but unfortunately just not experienced enough unless it comes to simple things like pop eye and constipation! XD But you're all really a blessing and this site is too without it I would've probably killed all the betta babies.

I do hope we can get this problem solved for her, shes young and such a great fish I'd hate for her to suffer, I miss her cute little antics. I've been making her a great resting place in ceramics!! (our ceramic body and glazes can be used in aquariums and I'm making her a tree with a betta shaped rest for her little self to rest on.)
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Veloran
They can take care of a lot of issues themselves as long as they have clean warm water and their immune systems are not compromised. I don't like the look of the bumps on her but I don't know if it's a female thing, maybe someone with females can answer that. Either way, clean, warm water will help her out.

You can shine a light behind her to see if those lumps are transparent or not, looking to see if they might be filled with fluid or mostly solid. Let's give her a day in some clean, warm water, check for poop then we can consider the fast / epsom salt.

I'd like to see the tree when you've made it too.
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Zhylis
Hi Chibi and Veloran,

You're right about those bumps. Her body shape is very unusual and unfortunately not in a good way. Just as an example, the attached photo is from Muira's female, whom we're looking at in another thread. You can see she's very streamlined and tapers smoothly from her midline to her tail.

Rather than looking thin from starvation, your girl is actually very thick especially near her tail. Without any additional tests, it's hard to say what's wrong. But my best guess would be that she's in the late stages of an internal parasite or bacterial infection. One of the ways fish try to protect themselves is by isolating the infection in a tissue masses called granulomas. The accumulation of those can build up inside, leading to the bumpy body shape.

It can be controversial, but I would consider euthanasia at this point. Any treatment for parasites would probably be too stressful for her to survive.

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Veloran
Zhylis said:
Hi Chibi and Veloran,

You're right about those bumps. Her body shape is very unusual and unfortunately not in a good way. Just as an example, the attached photo is from Muira's female, whom we're looking at in another thread. You can see she's very streamlined and tapers smoothly from her midline to her tail.

Rather than looking thin from starvation, your girl is actually very thick especially near her tail. Without any additional tests, it's hard to say what's wrong. But my best guess would be that she's in the late stages of an internal parasite or bacterial infection. One of the ways fish try to protect themselves is by isolating the infection in a tissue masses called granulomas. The accumulation of those can build up inside, leading to the bumpy body shape.

It can be controversial, but I would consider euthanasia at this point. Any treatment for parasites would probably be too stressful for her to survive.
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Thanks, I was afraid of that, I've been known to get the diagnosis of females wrong so I wanted to be sure.
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Zhylis said:
Hi Chibi and Veloran,

You're right about those bumps. Her body shape is very unusual and unfortunately not in a good way. Just as an example, the attached photo is from Muira's female, whom we're looking at in another thread. You can see she's very streamlined and tapers smoothly from her midline to her tail.

Rather than looking thin from starvation, your girl is actually very thick especially near her tail. Without any additional tests, it's hard to say what's wrong. But my best guess would be that she's in the late stages of an internal parasite or bacterial infection. One of the ways fish try to protect themselves is by isolating the infection in a tissue masses called granulomas. The accumulation of those can build up inside, leading to the bumpy body shape.

It can be controversial, but I would consider euthanasia at this point. Any treatment for parasites would probably be too stressful for her to survive.
Click to expand...
Oh god are we like 100% sure?! I haven't noticed any signs up parasites from her her poops been normal. I feel like such an idiot I thought her 'weight loss' looking shape was because my mom wasn't feeding her a billion flakes and she was losing un-needed weight.
Could you link me the thread you're currently working on with Muiras female? I don't want my girl to suffer but I dont want to lose her either, have to do whats right for her though so I want to be informed on this as much as possible.
Thank you so much for helping its greatly appreciated even if its bad news like this could be.

On the plus side she seems much more chipper today when I fed her this morning and I am positive she found her food.
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C
Also checked the masses last night theyre solid.
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NorthernLights
Poor little girl!

If you don't plan to euthanize her, you could use API General Cure (which kills a lot of internal parasites) and keep that water very clean. I would also switch her to a better quality food like Omega One Betta Buffet pellets or New Life Spectrum Betta Pellets.

I second the advice to try to keep the water stable; a change of 8 degrees is a big change for these fish, and a stable temp slightly lower than optimal is better than one that changes significantly.
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NorthernLights said:
Poor little girl!

If you don't plan to euthanize her, you could use API General Cure (which kills a lot of internal parasites) and keep that water very clean. I would also switch her to a better quality food like Omega One Betta Buffet pellets or New Life Spectrum Betta Pellets.

I second the advice to try to keep the water stable; a change of 8 degrees is a big change for these fish, and a stable temp slightly lower than optimal is better than one that changes significantly.
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I plan on updating her food and possibly getting her into a smaller tank so the changes are easier on her.
The temperature will be difficult as I'll have to buy another heater: I bought one on sale and didn't notice it only raises the degrees by 5 so in our apartment the college turns off the heat during the day and turns it on at night, basically meaning the temp has been fluctuating and I've been playing the 'run home and unplug the heater so she doesn't fry' or 'run home and plug in heater so she doesn't freeze'

If API can be used for this I will definitely be buying it tonight, road conditions be damned, too bad I left all my AQ salt at home otherwise I'd have everything I needed!
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Update:Have her new food and new water conditioner!!!
Also bought API general cure as well as an additional packet of AQ salt! As a general question should I start with an AQ treatment or go straight for API?
And with APIs general treatment should I remove my sponge filter since it's a filter media and just replace it after the first day?

Also what sort of parasite is this? I want to make sur I don't contaminate her.:p
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NorthernLights
It is hard to identify the exact parasite without more information. :cry:
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NorthernLights said:
It is hard to identify the exact parasite without more information. :cry:
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Sadly I havent seen her poop and she doesn't have any outward signs like latchers on or anything. I haven't seen anything in the water swimmin around and I haven't fed her any live food so I have no idea either.:-?

Shes hanging on pretty well thus far, not saying shes doing great but its her second dose of the general cure and shes still hanging in there so heres hoping.
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Veloran
Hi, sorry, I've been out for a bit.
Anyway, since we're not sure exactly the cause, you may also have to add an antibiotic to her treatment regime to deal with the possible bacterial infection. Kanaplex (kanamcyin) is generally recommended.I hesitate to recommend Tetracycline, but it's an option since Kanaplex isn't easy to come by. As mentioned previously, it may not cure her and the antibiotic can be rough on her, but if you want to go down swinging, it's worth a shot.

I may be in and out for a couple more days.
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Veloran said:
Hi, sorry, I've been out for a bit.
Anyway, since we're not sure exactly the cause, you may also have to add an antibiotic to her treatment regime to deal with the possible bacterial infection. Kanaplex (kanamcyin) is generally recommended.I hesitate to recommend Tetracycline, but it's an option since Kanaplex isn't easy to come by. As mentioned previously, it may not cure her and the antibiotic can be rough on her, but if you want to go down swinging, it's worth a shot.

I may be in and out for a couple more days.
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You're fine dont worry about it! I've been treating her with API Gen. Cure and so far she's been doing alright, Im not going to jinx myself but yesterday she was looking a little swimmier which has me hopeful.

Do you know what LFS brands contain Kanaplex? And do youthink it'd be worth giving her an aq/epsom treatment too?I'm debating adding some AQ salt/epsom to the water to give her some boosted help but I'm still on the fence.:-?
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Veloran
We could do a 1 tsp / gal epsom salt, no aq salt. It may not do anything since as you said the lumps look solid.

Kanaplex is the name of the med, it's from Seachem, it contains kanamycin. You'll have to call around, I know of only one LFS in my area that stocks it, otherwise you'd have to order it.
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Quick Update: Shes on her second week of treatment with the API Gen Cure

Tonight I've done a first addition of a teaspoon of epsom salts, shes also been moved into a two gallon so it's easier for her to swim.

Sadly the masses have gotten much more pronounced on both sides . This poor kid can't catch a break.
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C
Also no poop yet. I have never been so frustrated at not having caught an animal taking a poo before. Where is her poo!? Ughguaghryagkrab
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