Urgent: Betta With Intestine Hanging Out?

[JollieMollie]

My sister has a male betta, which she keeps at room temperature in nice big bowls (none of those nasty half-cup type). About a week ago I think he had some constipation problems and was floating, etc, but after a few days he recovered and was eating and swimming normally. A couple days ago, Mom put in some anti-algae drops (safe for fish) because the tank sometimes gets algae going in it. We've been using the same drops once a week for several months. Later that day, the fish was at the bottom of the bowl, barely moving, and either had some kind of fungus going or his slime was sloughing off. He looked to be in very bad shape. We put fresh pure water in his other bowl (we sometimes switch bowls when we clean them) and I gently scooped him up in a measuring cup and transferred him.

He seemed to be improving and the "fuzz" went away, just staying at the bottom mostly except to swim up for a breath of air occasionally and sink back down slowly. Not wanting him to have to put the extra energy in to get air and thinking maybe the bottled water just didn't have enough oxygen, I put an aireator stone in and ran that overnight. He was doing pretty good in the morning; scales looked fine and all, so we thought he was getting better. This afternoon however, all the sudden he developed some sort of sac hanging from what I presume to be the anus. It's light brown in color; a blob hanging by a thin filament. He is doing just as fine as before as far as that he carries his fins errect, sometimes floats mid-water instead of resting on the bottom, isn't gasping too hard for breath... he just has this horrible sac. He also won't eat. Is this his intestines or could it possibly be something else? Is there anything we can do for him?

 

[bluetrane2028]

I'm guessing this all was caused by poor water conditions thanks to keeping him in a bowl. Personally I'd never again keep a betta in anything smaller than a 5 gallon filtered aquarium, but even those are possible to mess up... You shouldn't have to be adding anti algae chemicals, or any other chemical really except for AquaSafe, or an equivalent, especially when there is less than 10 gallons of tank. It's far better to scrape the algae off of the tank glass than it is to put in some chemical to kill off algae. Long story short, this one might be beyond saving, or it could just be a wierd stool. Either way, there isn't much you can do at this moment except keep his water clean and wait it out. A full aquarium doesn't have to take up that much space, or cost that much money either, but should give you a bit of extra wiggle room on the bio load.

Good luck with the betta, I hope he comes out of it okay.