What should I do if my betta fish has stopped eating?

Question

My betta fish has not eaten in about a week. I am really worried because he has no energy and basically just floats, tail up, on the bottom of the tank. He has been very aggressive for the past two months, blowing up trying to fight anyone that approaches the tank. I have only had him for about 6 months and have read that they can live 3-5 years. He just doesnt look well and i do not know what to do? Can anyone give me advice??

He is not inflated or scaling or anything like that. However i did notice his color is not as bright and his face has gotten darker? almost as if he is dirty.. he tries to swim and if he can get enough energy to he can but there are times that he just sort of twitches in his attempts.. I mentioned before that he has not eaten in about a week which was the last time i changed his water (he has a rather large tank with a very small air pump so the water stays clean longer) could that have something to do with it?

Today especially i have been watching my fish very closely as i have a bad feeling about it.. he tends to sit still at the bottom of the tank, breathing heavily - panting his gills quickly for a few minutes.. followed by serious energy splurges where he swims frantically until he finds a new spot to be still again

Answer 1

Hi there,

I have 13 Betta in my 75 gal tank, and this problem i met before from 3 of my betta. This is the immediate action you should do as the "First Aid" for your betta.

1. Get yourself few nutritien blocks and change the water about 40%( this water level is for urgent only, normally we change 25%-30% will do) and just drop one block of nutritien in the tank. Depends on your tank size. THis nutritien will rpovide enough minerals for the betta although he dowan to eat anyhting, this is just for first aid purposes.

2. Try to get the correct medicine such as parasite medicine and general aid medicine. But apply both medicine separately, firstly apply the general aid for about 5 hours, then add in about 3 to 5 ml of parasite medicine for the resuce.

3. You would have to chagne the water 40% daily for your sick betta, the sickness probably cause by ammonia, nitrit and nitrat. So use a tester to test the ammonia, nitrit and nitrat in the water, ensure that the figure is low, if possible, try to reduce to the minimum figure that is "0".

Hope the solution for you at the top might help you on the problem you face. Good luck..^_^

Answer 2

He's probably sick. The best thing you could do would be to keep the water clean (change more often) and hope that the better environment improves it's resistance and gives it the ability to fight whatever disease thats plauging him.

Since you did not mention any sign, I assumes there's nothing obvious. You could try to add some anti-bacterial medication as a betta that standing on it head, probably have some kind of bouyancy problem, which is probably cause by some bacterial infection internally.

Hopes this helps.

Answer 3

We had our betta fish "Henry" for about six months when he started doing the exact same thing. He died. They can live that long, but the problem is that you don't know how old he was when you got him. Take heart though that he was with you at the end, and you gave him love and attention to make the last part of his life happy. We have another betta fish now...I think my daughter named him Napoleon.

Answer 4

Does he look any different? Stressed, scales raised up, bloated or floating on one side. Even swimming crooked? I will probably be able to help, but I need more information.