Was my beta fish electrocuted??

[NatalieK123]

guys I am completely devastated.. I really don’t know what happened..
I left this morning to go to work, fed my fish, checked the tank - everything looked perfectly fine.. my beta was swimming happily and came to the surface to eat as always..
I came home just now and couldn’t find him.. and suddenly I saw him dead stuck behind the filter.. guys he was black and his eyes were white.. it was horrific.. I also noticed that part of his belly was missing..
I am not sure what happened but I can only assume he was somehow electrocuted..
the tank has also a heater so I am not sure whether this could be at fault. We have two snails that looked perfectly fine.

I am really devastated and not sure what happened.. any advice or thoughts are greatly appreciated

 

[PheonixKingZ]

Hi, and welcome to the forum!

What brand is the heater?

Does he have any other tank mates?

What temperature is the tank?

Do you have a picture of your betta?

I am sorry for your loss....

 

[NatalieK123]

Hi, and welcome to the forum!

What brand is the heater?

Does he have any other tank mates?

What temperature is the tank?

Do you have a picture of your betta?

I am sorry for your loss....

Thank you
The tank temperature was kept at 25 degrees Celsius - I am a bit of a noob but I think the heater is an Interpet (don’t know if that’s the brand?)

His tank mates were two snails and an amano shrimp..

I have tried to attach a photo but I think it’s too big.. it’s truly horrific...

 

[Colin_T]

If the pictures are too big for the website, set the camera's resolution to its lowest setting and take some more. The lower resolution will make the images smaller and they should fit on this website. Check the pictures on your pc and find a couple that are clear and show the problem, and post them here. Make sure you turn the camera's resolution back up after you have taken the pics otherwise all your pictures will be small.

It's unlikely the fish was electrocuted.

If a fish dies the other things in the tank will usually eat it. Snails and shrimp will definitely eat a dead fish. They start at the belly because it's the softest place with least bony protection.

Check the water quality for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate.

 

[betta fish]

Hi, I'm sorry to hear about your fish just to reassure you it is unlikely to be anything you have done, unfortunately bettas are an extremely curious fish, I have lost count of the amount of times I have had to rescue mine either from behind filters or heaters, they go behind them and then get stuck, with their need to breathe air they then drown I have lost some that I never caught in time, so please don't blame yourself, he sounds like he was healthy and happy.

 

[NatalieK123]

Hi, and welcome to the forum!

What brand is the heater?

Does he have any other tank mates?

What temperature is the tank?

Do you have a picture of your betta?

I am sorry for your loss....

If the pictures are too big for the website, set the camera's resolution to its lowest setting and take some more. The lower resolution will make the images smaller and they should fit on this website. Check the pictures on your pc and find a couple that are clear and show the problem, and post them here. Make sure you turn the camera's resolution back up after you have taken the pics otherwise all your pictures will be small.

It's unlikely the fish was electrocuted.

If a fish dies the other things in the tank will usually eat it. Snails and shrimp will definitely eat a dead fish. They start at the belly because it's the softest place with least bony protection.

Check the water quality for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate.

Hello thank you for you comment!
I have attached two photos of him.. you can see he was a bright blue with red, really really gorgeous... how is it possible to be in that stage over an evening, he looked fried...

We were always checking the water quality and I checked two days ago and it was perfectly normal..
I will check today because obviously the quality will have changed..

 

[NatalieK123]

Hi, I'm sorry to hear about your fish just to reassure you it is unlikely to be anything you have done, unfortunately bettas are an extremely curious fish, I have lost count of the amount of times I have had to rescue mine either from behind filters or heaters, they go behind them and then get stuck, with their need to breathe air they then drown I have lost some that I never caught in time, so please don't blame yourself, he sounds like he was healthy and happy.

Thank you he was so happy and healthy.. he also went through a Finrot during Christmas when we left him in the Aquarium place we bought him from for pet sitting as we were gone for 3 weeks - I was so angry at them they definitely did not take proper care of him. I failed so guilty that he probably got too stressed with the environment change. After Christmas I went to pick him up and the poor guy looked so sick.. we took care of him and he recovered very quickly.. but I would never imagine he would die so suddenly...

It didn’t look like he was just drowned though he had lost all his bright colours and he almost looked mummified.. it was terrible... could this have happened in just one evening?

 

[Colin_T]

You didn't have 2 bettas in the tank by any chance?

If the dead fish has only been dead for less than a day I am shocked because it looks like it has been dead for 3 or 4 days.

All I can assume is he got stuck behind the filter and freaked out, or he had a stroke or heart attack and got sucked onto the filter. But they don't normally look black like that unless they have been dead for a bit.

Did you do a water change or anything the day before this happened?
Did you feed him a new food?

 

[Essjay]

Just to clear up a point from the first post -

One of my sons is an electrician and I asked him a while ago about faulty electrical equipment harming the fish. He said fish cannot be electrocuted by a faulty heater, for example, because they are not earthed. In the same way that birds can sit quite happily on a high voltage cable without getting electrocuted. However, we can get electrocuted by a faulty heater because we are earthed - our hands are in the water and our feet are on the ground. Similarly, if we stood on a pylon and touched the high voltage cable we would be electrocuted. Did you know that engineers can work on a high voltage cable without turning off the power if they are suspended from a helicopter?
This is one reason we should always turn off the heater and internal or HOB filters before putting our hands in the tank.

Edit to add -
Forgot to mention......


The same son also told me that submersible equipment (at least equipment made in the UK; he has to work with UK electrical laws) must be IP6 rated. Most IP6 rated equipment has a built in transformer to reduce the current or voltage (forgotten which one he said) so if you put your hands in the tank with faulty equipment the worst you should get is a nasty shock. The only people seriously affected with be those with pacemakers. However, he also said he'd never put his hands in a tank with suspect equipment - he'd use his tester first.
Note that this applies to UK made equipment, and probably EU made equipment. other countries will have different regulations. And I would not trust equipment made in the far east for this reason.

 

[NatalieK123]

You didn't have 2 bettas in the tank by any chance?

If the dead fish has only been dead for less than a day I am shocked because it looks like it has been dead for 3 or 4 days.

All I can assume is he got stuck behind the filter and freaked out, or he had a stroke or heart attack and got sucked onto the filter. But they don't normally look black like that unless they have been dead for a bit.

Did you do a water change or anything the day before this happened?
Did you feed him a new food?

You didn't have 2 bettas in the tank by any chance?

If the dead fish has only been dead for less than a day I am shocked because it looks like it has been dead for 3 or 4 days.

All I can assume is he got stuck behind the filter and freaked out, or he had a stroke or heart attack and got sucked onto the filter. But they don't normally look black like that unless they have been dead for a bit.

Did you do a water change or anything the day before this happened?
Did you feed him a new food?

Thank you for your reply!!

No we just had him!! We were specifically told about their territorial behaviours and we did a lot of research before we bought him about what they usually like (plants, shelters, food etc).

I am so shocked too!! I fed him yesterday morning, his usual flakes, exactly the same way and same portion I normally fed him and he was his usual self swimming and bright coloured. And came home after work to find him like this. So basically I was gone for 9h tops...

We would usually do a water change every Sunday and check the quality regularly so his weekly water change would happen tomorrow

You think the poor guy had a heart attack? Oh my god this sounds terrible :’(

 

[NatalieK123]

Just to clear up a point from the first post -

One of my sons is an electrician and I asked him a while ago about faulty electrical equipment harming the fish. He said fish cannot be electrocuted by a faulty heater, for example, because they are not earthed. In the same way that birds can sit quite happily on a high voltage cable without getting electrocuted. However, we can get electrocuted by a faulty heater because we are earthed - our hands are in the water and our feet are on the ground. Similarly, if we stood on a pylon and touched the high voltage cable we would be electrocuted. Did you know that engineers can work on a high voltage cable without turning off the power if they are suspended from a helicopter?
This is one reason we should always turn off the heater and internal or HOB filters before putting our hands in the tank.

Thank you so much for clearing this out!! This is so so interesting, I had no idea!!

Now I am even more curious to what happened to him he looked so terrible and that was the only logical explanation to me..

 

[Colin_T]

For a fish to be eating and acting normally and then dead a few hours later, it is either poisoning (usually from a water change that was just done), or the fish had a stroke or heart attack. These are uncommon in fish but can happen. The fish might have been in a weakened start due to its past, or it was just genetically weaker from inbreeding.

 

[PheonixKingZ]

But I would think that if he was poisoned, he would just die. This little guy was completely fried. What @essjay said makes sense, but I still don’t see how this could have happened. I am sorry for the loss of your beautiful betta fish.

 

[betta fish]

Bettas do have quite a drastic colour change when they die depending on what colour they were to begin with, it doesn't look too abnormal to me and if he died shortly after you left 9 hrs in warm water he would deteriorate quite quickly, so sorry he was lovely.

 

[PheonixKingZ]

I agree. I have had many a betta die on me, and after a couple of hours, they turned gray/black.

He was a beautiful fish, and I’m sorry for your loss.