What's Wrong With My Betta?

[Chelsea_Askew]

Can someone please help. I rescued my Betta fish from a PetCo about two months ago and had to treat him for fin rot that he had upon buying him. He seemed like he was doing better for awhile but for the last week he has been acting strange. And today while cleaning his tank he totally freaked out and I thought he was going to die. All he will do is float at the top of his tank and he looks like he is struggling to breath, often taking in two to three breaths at a time.
 
Housing
My fish lives in a Marineland Eclipse Hexagon 5 Gallon Aquarium Item: 2752369
What size is your tank? 5 gallon tank
What temperature is your tank? between 78-80 degrees
Does your tank have a filter? yes
Does your tank have an air stone or other type of aeration?
Is your tank heated? yes
What tank mates does your betta fish live with? none
Food
What type of food do you feed your betta fish? pellets and flakes
How often do you feed your betta fish? twice a day
Maintenance
How often do you perform a water change? weekly
What percentage of the water do you change when you perform a water change? 20 to 30%
What type of additives do you add to the water when you perform a water change? Stress Coat Fish & Water Conditioner and aquarium salt
 
Water Parameters:
Have you tested your water? If so, what are the following parameters? no
Ammonia:
Nitrite:
Nitrate:
pH:
Hardness:
Alkalinity:
Symptoms and Treatment
How has your betta fish's appearance changed?
How has your betta fish's behavior changed? stays at the top of the tank
When did you start noticing the symptoms? a little over a week ago
Have you started treating your fish? If so, how? I performed a 30% water change today.
Does your fish have any history of being ill? yes he was sick when I got him. Had fin rot which I treated.
How old is your fish (approximately)? not sure I have had him between 2 to 3 months
 

 

[l_l_l]

I'm thinking you should test your water and see what it tells you.
 
It is said that a good fishkeeper is not known as a fishkeeper but as a waterkeeper.

 

[Blondielovesfish]

If you can get the readings for ammonia, nitrite and nitrate that would help a lot.
 
Does he appear to be gasping?
 
How much do you feed him?

 

[Wildbetta]

I would suggest you do a 50% water change to start with.  Since you have not tested your tank for ammonia, nitrIte, or nitrAte I would say you did not cycle the tank before added the betta so you will need to up your water changes to every other day of  around 50% to keep the levels from being damaging to your fish. He looks good from the photos.  Has he been scratching on anything in the tank or acting lethargic lately?  Any other times where he acted like he was breathing heavily?
 
One other thing, flakes are not a good source of food for bettas since they do tend to cause bloating issues for the betta and water quality issues for the tank since flakes tend to be hard to measure out.