Betta fish quick breathing and less active

[fishtime!]

This morning I noticed my betta fish (usually very active) wasn't swimming around much, but she was interested in her food and ate all of it, but afterwards was just hanging out by the heater/filter near the surface with labored breathing. Again, she is usually swimming all over and exploring the tank. I just did a 50% water change, shes swam around a little more then stopped and her breathing is still faster than normal. When I did the water change she was swimming around as well. The only thing I have changed in the past few days is I put a "shrimp lollipop" in, none of my shrimp seemed interested in it but my fish actually liked poking around it so I left it in even though it got a kind of weird film on it after a few days. Obviously I have removed that and when I did the water change made sure to vacuum up as much as I could. I'll include pictures of the shrimp lollipop, of a top down view of her (maybe I'm overfeeding?), and videos of her breathing.

Tank details:
Size: 20 gallon long
Inhabitants: 1 betta fish, some ramshorn snails, about 10 blue dream shrimp
Other stuff: driftwood, dragon rock, various live plants, 2 plastic tunnels, 1 ceramic hide
Water quality: Ammonia 0, Nitrite 0, Nitrate 0
Cleaning regime: ~30% water change once a week , vacuum substrate, and once in a while I squeeze my filter media in the old tank water
Filter: HOB with a super old carbon cartridge and some sponges
Water temp: 80 degrees
Feeding: 5 frozen brine shrimp twice a day, fasting day on Sunday, sometimes I do bug bites and once a week I do frozen bloodworms.
Plant fertilizer: I dose the tank every few days with this fertilizer, I always check nitrates to make sure I'm not overdosing with the fertilizer (because I did that once)

I would appreciate any and all thoughts!

Ms. fish breathing heavy 1
Ms. Fish breathing heavy 2

 

[fishtime!]

This morning I noticed my betta fish (usually very active) wasn't swimming around much, but she was interested in her food and ate all of it, but afterwards was just hanging out by the heater/filter near the surface with labored breathing. Again, she is usually swimming all over and exploring the tank. I just did a 50% water change, shes swam around a little more then stopped and her breathing is still faster than normal. When I did the water change she was swimming around as well. The only thing I have changed in the past few days is I put a "shrimp lollipop" in, none of my shrimp seemed interested in it but my fish actually liked poking around it so I left it in even though it got a kind of weird film on it after a few days. Obviously I have removed that and when I did the water change made sure to vacuum up as much as I could. I'll include pictures of the shrimp lollipop, of a top down view of her (maybe I'm overfeeding?), and videos of her breathing.

Tank details:
Size: 20 gallon long
Inhabitants: 1 betta fish, some ramshorn snails, about 10 blue dream shrimp
Other stuff: driftwood, dragon rock, various live plants, 2 plastic tunnels, 1 ceramic hide
Water quality: Ammonia 0, Nitrite 0, Nitrate 0
Cleaning regime: ~30% water change once a week , vacuum substrate, and once in a while I squeeze my filter media in the old tank water
Filter: HOB with a super old carbon cartridge and some sponges
Water temp: 80 degrees
Feeding: 5 frozen brine shrimp twice a day, fasting day on Sunday, sometimes I do bug bites and once a week I do frozen bloodworms.
Plant fertilizer: I dose the tank every few days with this fertilizer, I always check nitrates to make sure I'm not overdosing with the fertilizer (because I did that once)

I would appreciate any and all thoughts!

Ms. fish breathing heavy 1
Ms. Fish breathing heavy 2

View attachment 353888View attachment 353889

oh and i condition the water with seachem prime

 

[Colin_T]

FIRST AID FOR FISH
Test the water for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and pH. You have done this and it appears fine so do the stuff below.

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 or until the problem is identified. 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 in. It also removes a lot of the gunk and this means any medication can work on treating the fish instead of being wasted killing the pathogens in the gunk.
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 so any medication (if needed) will work more effectively on the fish.

Increase surface turbulence/ aeration to maximise the dissolved oxygen in the water.

 

[Donya]

The only thing I have changed in the past few days is I put a "shrimp lollipop" in, none of my shrimp seemed interested in it but my fish actually liked poking around it so I left it in even though it got a kind of weird film on it after a few days.

Filter: HOB with a super old carbon cartridge

Normally I would suspect the shrimp treat for having dumped a bunch of waste in the water, but you said those params checked out...so it's not that. I don't have a great handle on the size of the treats; maybe they messed with the pH? Also for situations like this where something new is added and things go haywire, it never hurts to change out the carbon for a fresh batch just in case there's an irritant or something that the carbon can catch.

EDIT: btw this is without having seen the videos unfortunately; the still loaded for me but I couldn't make it actually play. Not sure why.

 

[fishtime!]

FIRST AID FOR FISH
Test the water for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and pH. You have done this and it appears fine so do the stuff below.

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 or until the problem is identified. 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 in. It also removes a lot of the gunk and this means any medication can work on treating the fish instead of being wasted killing the pathogens in the gunk.
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 so any medication (if needed) will work more effectively on the fish.

Increase surface turbulence/ aeration to maximise the dissolved oxygen in the water.

Thanks Colin,

I wiped down the glass and I increased the filter flow by taking off the sponge I use to baffle it. It's definitely way too strong for her. Do you recommend this as a short-term thing to help her recover from whatever is happening, or as a long term thing? She's been very happy in this tank for months so I don't understand why oxygen levels would be a problem now.