odd betta death

[noelberg]

my first betta, Blue, just died last night. and I was curious if anybody could maybe shed some light on what happened.

Yesterday morning, I saw Blue had something reddish hanging off his ventral fins, and somewhat stuck to his body. I thought it might have been a large poo, but it may have been an organ. After it fell off he barely moved at all, and rested on the gravel a lot (unusual for him) and by nighttime he was dead.

The background: Blue was in my 20 G community tank all of the 4-5 months that I had him, so he dealt well with a 125 gph filter and got along well with the other tank citizens. He was active most of the day, and got fed 1 - 2 times daily on Nutramax flakes with all the other fish. My water has no ammonia or nitrites, but the pH is about 6.3 and the water is quite soft. Last week I added two female swordtails, and one just died Wednesday from an unknown ailment that caused her to breathe very heavily.

Any ideas?

 

[noelberg]

anybody?

is there some sort of illness or something that causes organs to be expelled?

does the added activity of living in a filtered community tank cause betta lifespans to shorten?

i'm stumped so any input would be welcome

 

[SneakBetta]

I'm curious too... my opaque betta had the same thing then died. It was about a year ago though.

 

[SneakBetta]

But my betta had the reddish thing on his head behind his eye.

 

[Dakota Ice]

I dont think it was an organ. There had to have been a quite large, noticeable cut for that organ to be just sticking out and fall off. It sounds more like a skin or fungus problem to me.

I am for sure, however, that large tanks make bettas uncomfortable and sometimes stresses them out. I know that many people have kept bettas in larger aquariums and were fine, but some just cant quite handle it.

I'd do some research on types of fungus, If I were you. I'll do some research myself, though.

Good Luck!
Dakota

 

[SneakBetta]

My betta was living in a 2-gallon bowl when he died. It looked like he hit a rock and got a big cut.

 

[sef]

The first thing that came to mind for me, is that he may have had an internal parasite of some sort that broke through the skin. It's even possible that it was an intestinal parasite, and some of the digestive tract was expelled when the parasite exited. I've dealt with internal parasites on two occasions, but the betta was ill for a long period of time beforehand. It seems odd that the betta would be perfectly fine one day, and have this happen the next.

Very odd; I've heard of a lot of unexplained betta deaths, but this one is something of a stumper!

sef

 

[noelberg]

this is starting to sound like an episode for the fishy X files

long night by myself, so maybe i'll check out parasites on the net

hmmm, if it's a parasite, then i hope it hasn't spread. all the other fish seem fine at the moment