lovemybettas5

I take the food pellets for my betta fish and crush them up quite a bit so my betta is able to eat them. Unfortunately, he doesn't get much to eat bc everytime I put something in his bowl, he tries to get it, but can not. It is so weird how he barley opens his mouth. Is this a certain disease? I would feed him the flakes but he doesn't like them. He is also very lathargic, stays at the top of the water and has been for months.
Any suggestions or advice would be much appreciated!

Thanks,
Courtney

COBettaCouple

Well, i'll have some questions for you and hopefully we can help your little Betta get happy. He sounds as if he might have a swim bladder disorder - this can affect a betta for months, but sometimes will simply heal up and go away, but that's just a guess at this point.

Do you have a picture of him?
Does he seem to move his gills and/or mouth as if he's trying to get air?
Does anything look wrong about his appearance - things like cloudy eyes, red/purple gills, spots, color loss, etc?
What size tank is he in, how often do you change part of his water and does he have a bubble stone?
What temp is his water and what are the current ammonia, nitrite and nitrate levels of his water?
How long have you had him?

There are some foods that might be good for him right now - if you can find hikari freeze-dried daphnia, it's very small and soft. Also, you could look for the micro-pellets meant for baby fish as they're pretty tiny. He should have an easier time with those. Also if he does have swim bladder disorder it helps to have 'ledges' that he can rest on, especially one near the surface (but below it enough for him to rest and be totally under the water. If you click on the 'our tanks' link at the bottom of this post, you'll see tank #6 how we have it setup for a betta we bought with a swim bladder disorder. Best of luck with the little guy and i hope we'll find a 100% for sure answer to what's going on with him.