S-Shaped Betta

[Katty]

I went to feed my female betta before going to bed, and noticed her spine is slightly S-shaped when seen from above. When she tries to swim, it becomes extremely curved and she swims in sort of hopping bursts and doesn't go very far. She ate one piece of food before I noticed something was wrong and so I stopped feeding. Otherwise she looks OK but the S-shape is very bad. It does not look right at all.

My first though was that she got sucked into a filter... Except it's an internal filter so there's no way that could have happened. Looking around on google I saw fish TB but the spine is not curved up and down, it's curved side to side so I don't think it's that...

The tank is about 2 gallons, filtered, and heated to 78-82 F. I really need to go to bed so I can't test the water till tomorrow. I'll check on her and this post in the morning.

 

[clgklg]

Go here: www.petfish.net/kb/entry/338/ and see if this may be the problem. If not let me know and we will see if we can figure it out. Good luck!

 

[Katty]

Swim bladder does look like it could be a possibility. My last betta had problems with that as well, but usually his belly would bloat, her stomach looks pretty small right now. I'll feed her pea tonight and see if that straightens things out.

 

[Katty]

Uh oh... Yesterday night and today she hasn't been able to swim up. Every time she swims she sort of takes a nose dive and scoots along the bottom. But she isn't swimming much anyways. She is just hiding inside of her cave ornament and I haven't seen her come up for air. I thought bettas died if they can't breathe air...

I fed her pea on Sunday night, and fed her nothing last night. I just did a 50% water change (~1 gallon). I don't know if she still has the S-shape thing because she's hiding in her cave and doesn't want to come out.

 

[clgklg]

I still think its swimbladder. Stay away from brine and bloodworms. Do you do pellets? Ive heard of those expanding in their tummys. I think you should probably keep doing what your doing. If shes having a hard time getting to her food you can always lower the water level for her. Sorry and good luck

 

[Katty]

Yeah I do some small pellets. She can't even come to the surface for food but I don't know if I should even be feeding her.

 

[clgklg]

hows everything going? I was looking into it some more (love google) and I found another website that says swim bladder is not the only disease that can cause a fish to swim in an S shape. They also mentioned vitamin deficiency (it stated some fish need more than one source of food) do you think that could be it?

 

[Katty]

Well... I don't know what it was but she died anyways today. I made a topic here if you're curious what happened exactly.