help my flatmate's betta

[clutterydrawer]

The situation is...I got a new flatmate, and some new fish. My flatmate was so taken by my pretty little gouramis that she wanted her own tank so I helped her set up one for a betta, and do it all properly so he wouldn't die from new tank syndrome or whatnot.

About a week later he's pretty lethargic, won't eat and I think he has dropsy. Arg! She'll be really upset if he dies and I'll feel partly responsible, so I was wondering what the best treatment was? I've never dealt with dropsy *or* kept bettas so I thought maybe someone could point me in the right direction. Thankyou!

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Is he showing any other symtoms or strange behavior? Being lethargic alone is not enough to diagnose dropsy and it can mean many things. I take it that it is a small uncycled tank, has she cleaned out the tank at all in the last week and is she using dechlorinator?

 

[clutterydrawer]

he's blown up like a balloon and his scales are sticking out. sounds like dropsy to me...?

It's 5g tank, ammonia 0 nitrite 0 nitrates...not sure my kit is broken. I put a big block of filter media from one of my other tanks into her filter. Yes we used dechlorinator...I did a water change today aswell, just in case.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Sounds like dropsy, if his scales have completely pineconed/sticking out there isn't much hope for him- try feeding him some chopped up de-shelled peas and use some anti internal bacteria meds but unfortunatly dropsy has a very low recovery rate, even more so once the fish has completely pineconed so prepare yourself for the worst just in case it happens- sorry about all th edepressing news

 

[clutterydrawer]

damn. anything we could've done to prevent it? I don't want her to lose hope she spent hours preparing the tank for him and arranging the plants how she imagined a fish would like them...bless her.

 

[WILDER]

Good water quality and a good varied diet, that about all, same as tokis has said once the pineconing has happened no hope, as thats the last stage of the desease, sorry.