Sudden Death?

[Ethos]

Tonight I lost my unnamed betta.
He lived with me, only a week or two.
I'm confused by his sudden death... I fed him regularly, he seemed to be pooping regularly, althought he was the most inactive of all my bettas. He also lives in the smallest bowl, of my bettas, a 1G.
I took him out of his bowl, and put him on a napkin on the bathroom counter, where I used the bright lights to study him. His head seemed a little darker than usualy, and his flin were clamped.
When I 'fished' him out of his bowl, he was laying on his side on the bottom. He never seemed to me unhealthy, but he was never as active as my others... I got him from wal*mart, and from all my bettas, he LOOKED like the youngest.

 

[jollysue]

Yes

 

[con771]

yes. Water changes are extreamily important. Epecially in a small bowl such as a 1G.

 

[jollysue]

Ethos, I'm sorry about your betta, but I almost wonder if you are putting us on

You know this stuff, don't you?

It's like you must be trying to get an hysterical reaction. You know, playing us? 9 days?

 

[SRC]

uhhm....9 days in a 1 gallon hmmm.

9 days is 5 days too long between water changes on a 1 gallon tank.

So yeah, that could have definately killed the fish. I would bet my money on that cause.

 

[JoLtNbolt]

are some of the postings missing from this thread? Where does anyone see anything about 9 days?

sorry for your loss

 

[jollysue]

Ethos stated that he hadn't done a water change in 9 days in his original post and could that have had anything to do with the loss? Several of us responded in the affirmative. Since that time Ethos has edited his post.

 

[Synirr]

Maybe I'm the odd man out, but I'm not sure that I agree 9 days in a 1 gallon without a water change is automatically a death sentence... I do weekly 100% water changes, and tested the water in several of my 1 gallons before doing the changes one day, out of curiosity. Some were only VERY slightly off from the 0ppm colour, and the worst were probably at about .1 ppm (between the 0 and the .25, so I can't be sure of the accuracy down to the hundredth of a ppm, but it was closer to 0 than to .25.) This is when feeding 5 Hikari gold pellets 6 days a week and a healthy helping of bloodworm one day, but making sure not to leave any uneaten food in the gravel.

So yeah... to keep levels as constant and low as possible, doing water changes once a week is critical, but I don't think that going 9 days without one would just kill a fish like that . God knows bettas can carry on living in misery for weeks in worse conditions than that.

Ethos, did you or any of your family members spray anything near the fish recently? Household cleaner, air freshener, etc? That's the only explanation I could come up with, but if that's the case he would most likely have died in full colour. This happened to two of my fish while I was away for the weekend once... our cleaning lady used Windex around them and it proved fatal . Their poor little bodies were in full colour, and their gills were noticeably redder than normal.

 

[JoLtNbolt]

Synirr, this is off topic, but what happened to Blue in your sig?

 

[Synirr]

Synirr, this is off topic, but what happened to Blue in your sig?

Nothing, I just took her off because I decided on which males I want to keep from my spawn and could use them to fill in the gaps
I don't generally have females in my sig, Mini being the exception, but I needed Blue to fill in a gap for a while, hehe.

 

[jollysue]

Just to be defensive, I didn't state that the fish did die from dirty water, just that failure to do water changes could be a cause. But you are right Synirr pollutants are just as likely or more so, particularly combined with dirty water.

Watch me do the fast shuffle