Betta Fish Illness?

[B Rod]

Hello, I have owned a Betta fish for 4 years now. Suddenly he seems to be quite lethargic, with his back end acting almost paralysed. He also has started to hang around the gravel and sleep sideways on the gravel or on a flower in the tank. We have never had any issue with him before.

Filtered tank + Heater. Regular partial water changes, no other fish in the tank, nothing he could injure himself on, heater at 25-27C

Any help please

 

[PygmyPepperJulli]

Hi and welcome to the forum!

Having never kept a beta, I probably can't diagnose much, but is it possible to upload any photos/videos so others can help? Seeming as it's 4 years old, it could be old age mixed with the general problems that have come with the beta industry from trying to breed certain traits, but again that's just me .

Hope it recovers or someone else can help.

PPJ

 

[B Rod]

Hi and welcome to the forum!

Having never kept a beta, I probably can't diagnose much, but is it possible to upload any photos/videos so others can help? Seeming as it's 4 years old, it could be old age mixed with the general problems that have come with the beta industry from trying to breed certain traits, but again that's just me .

Hope it recovers or someone else can help.

PPJ

Thanks just added the only pic I got today (it's almost midnight now) I hope he recovers also

 

[TNG]

I'd say a 4 year old betta is an old betta, so he's almost lived out his life in the wonderful care that you've provided.

 

[Lcc86]

Thats a very good age for a betta. No real advice other than perhaps try lowering the water so he doesn't have to swim so far to take a gulp of air and see if that helps. He looks in good condition from the picture so it may just be old age, but he's clearly been well cared for!

 

[PygmyPepperJulli]

It's probably not what you wanted to hear, as there's nothing you can really 'fix' to make it better, but as others have said I'm sure it's had a great life. It may recover, or live like that for maybe a year or so, or maybe there's something we all missed like some rare form of something, but I hope it does do well

 

[Colin_T]

Probably old age but there's some stuff you can do that might help.

Test the water for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and pH. Make sure there is 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, and less than 20ppm nitrate. You want nitrates as close to 0ppm as possible.

Wipe the inside of the glass down with a clean fish sponge. This removes the biofilm on the glass and the biofilm will contain lots of harmful bacteria, fungus, protozoans and various other microscopic life forms.

Do a 75% water change and gravel clean the substrate every day for a week. The water changes and gravel cleaning will reduce the number of disease organisms in the water and provide a cleaner environment for the fish to recover/ live in.
Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it is added to the tank.

Clean the filter if it hasn't been done in the last 2 weeks. However, if the filter is less than 6 weeks old, do not clean it. Wash the filter materials/ media in a bucket of tank water and re-use the media. Tip the bucket of dirty water on the garden/ lawn. Cleaning the filter means less gunk and cleaner water with fewer pathogens.

Increase surface turbulence/ aeration a little bit to increase the dissolved oxygen in the water.

Feed him a variety of food including dry, frozen (but defrosted) and live. The more variety in his diet, the more nutrients he will get.

You can also add a vitamin supplement to his food. Use a dry powder supplement for fish (or birds if you can't find one for fish) every day (or every second day if using the bird vitamin) and sprinkle it on some frozen food before offering it to him.