Lethargic Betta male with clamped fins!

[AWE]

Today as I was looking what my fish are doing I noticed that my Betta has changed dramatically both in appearance and behaviour. Yesterday he was perfectly ok, eating, swimming around and so on,

Today he's almost completely lethargic, his fins are clamped and in the rare occasions when he starts to swim, he's erratic and when he touches anything (a plant, decoration etc) he jumps away like he's being electrocuted. Apart from his clamped fins (all of them) he looks almost normal, with some very small reddish dots on a side of the body but only a couple of them (much smaller than the ich spots).

I've checked the water parameters, ammonia zero, nitrites zero, nitrates around 0.5 mg/l (0.5 ppm), pH around 8 and the water temperature stays constant at 78 - 79 degrees.

All other fish in the (18 gallon) tank are fine, there's 6 neon tetras and 6 Cory panda as the Betta's tank mates. They never interfere with each other and the tank is more than 2 years old so it's well established already. The Betta was added to the tank around 2.5 months ago and he's quite young, probably 1 year old or less.

Cannot post a picture at the moment because he's hiding and I don't want to stress him more by making him move for a picture.

What can he possible have, all of a sudden? The clamped fins and small pink spots made me think of velvet but there were no additions to the tank in the last couple of months at least. Any ideas what can I do to to help him?

 

[Colin_T]

Clamped fins and lethargy is often from cold water or poor water quality. It can also be from protozoan or bacterial infections.

Is the heater working properly?
Do you have a thermometer in the tank?

How often do you do water changes and how much water do you change?
Do you dechlorinate the new water before adding it to the tank?
Do you gravel clean the substrate when you do a water change?

How often do you clean the filter and how do you clean it?

Did you do a water change or add anything in the last couple of days?

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Velvet (Oodinium) causes fish to develop a gold sheen to their body. You turn the tank lights off and shine a torch on the fish. If it has a gold/ yellow sheen to its body, then it has velvet.

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Small red spots are normally protozoan or bacterial. Both of these problems are most commonly found in overcrowded tanks that don't get enough water changes, gravel cleaning or filter cleaning.

If the fish has cream, white or grey patches and a bit of red around the edges of these patches, it has a bad protozoan infection.

If the fish only has a few small red spots it has either been bitten by something in the tank or has a bacterial infection.

We need photographs to identify the problem. You don't have to move the fish, just take pictures of it laying on the ground or wherever it is. Check the pictures on your computer and post a couple on here that clearly show the problem.

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In the mean time, wipe the inside of the glass down, and do a 75% water change and gravel clean the substrate every day for a week.
Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it is added to the tank.

Filters should be cleaned at least once a month and every 2 weeks is better. Clean the filter if it hasn't been done in the last 2 weeks. Wash filter materials in a bucket of tank water.

 

[AWE]

It's quite a challenge to take a picture of him because he is hiding almost all the time and when he comes out he's constantly moving but I managed to post a couple.

To your question: I have a Eheim Jaeger heater and it's set to 26 degrees Celsius (78.8 Fahrenheit) and that is exactly what the thermometer shows.
Water changes are done weekly together with gravel cleaning, approx. 30% WC each time. I use my normal tap water dechlorinated by sitting 24h in an open bucket + Seachem Prime to be on the safe side.

The filter is cleaned at the same time, pre-filter sponge rinsed in the tank water which was removed and the bio media (Substrat Pro) is left untouched.

LE: I did a water change 2 days ago, the usual ritual. No new addition to the tank has been made.

Added a couple of pictures, hope it helps:

 

[Colin_T]

Is he still eating normally?
What's his poop like?

If he has stopped eating and is doing stringy white poop, he probably has an internal bacterial infection. Unfortunately there isn't much you can do for that.

If he is still eating then he might have injured himself or have an upset stomach.

 

[FishGuest5123]

Colin- I love the way you guys call flashlights torches. In the States that would be a stick dipped in flammable material and lit on fire. OP- Clamped fins in a betta are always signs of a bigger problem. Treatment needs to begin immediately. Unfortunately, without proper diagnoses that is hard to do. If all else fails, I would treat with Kanamycin such as Kanaplex. It treats gram negative bacterial infections and may be worth a shot. If you fill it is parasitic in nature you may want to try praziquantel based meds. Although I prefer not to use meds, if it appears that I may be losing a fish anyway, I go ahead with the big guns and treat with meds. Good luck!

 

[AWE]

Guys, thank you for all the replies! Now the current situation is like this: the fish started to swim normally and be pretty active but its fins are still clamped. I've decided not to feed for a couple of days because I've just realized that the day before the fish were overfed (I feed the Betta and neons separately from the Corydoras which are eating sinking tablets - which they adore by the way - and I usually remove the remains of the tablet which was not eaten in 5 minutes or so). These are the specific tablets and they're quite big actually.

Well this time I forgot to remove the rest of the tablet and when I came back it was already eaten, not only by the Cories but even the Betta and some neons were happily munching, almost nothing was left.

Not sure if this may have caused the issue with my Betta but I'd certainly not remove it from the equation...

A short video here:

 

[FishGuest5123]

He’s still active so that’s a good sign. I agree in fasting him for a couple of days unless someone has a better reason not to. Perhaps tomorrow evening you could try feeding him a piece of blanched, deshelled pea and see if he’ll eat it. That will help if he becomes constipated from overfeeding. Keep us posted.

 

[AWE]

Day 3: He still has the fins clamped (apparently even more than before) but I gave him something to eat and he took a few bites. He's still lethargic most of the time but comes out to swim a bit when he sees me, and take a bit of air from the surface.

I've also noticed that at the back of his body there's a bump in his belly, but not where his stomach or intestines are supposed to be, it's right above his anal fin. Could it be constipation combined with some intestinal occlusion? Is there something I could do to help him?

 

[jmak]

Day 3: He still has the fins clamped (apparently even more than before) but I gave him something to eat and he took a few bites. He's still lethargic most of the time but comes out to swim a bit when he sees me, and take a bit of air from the surface.

I've also noticed that at the back of his body there's a bump in his belly, but not where his stomach or intestines are supposed to be, it's right above his anal fin. Could it be constipation combined with some intestinal occlusion? Is there something I could do to help him?

I know this is over a year ago but the symptoms noted in the quote above match exactly what I’m experiencing with one of my Betta’s.

Just curious what the end result was? Did your Betta recover and if so, did you have to do anything to aid it’s recovery?

Thank you