Betta Fish Dropsy Help!

Hello everyone,
I have noticed that my betta fish, Bloo, has been bloated lately. He's been acting perfectly normal, eating and energetic. I decided tonight to look up bloated betta fish online and came across dropsy. It sounds bad and I'm worried about Bloo. Attached are a few pictures of him from tonight, sorry it might be kind of hard to see. You can see he's bloated from the top view, he doesn't seem to be very bloated from the side. It also looks like his scales might be starting to "pinecone" but I can't really tell. Does anyone have some experience with dropsy and know if he has it?
Thank you for any help, I'm very worried.

 

I just took him out of his tank and put him in a different one with new water for now

 

Update: I put him in an Epsom salt bath. Here are some more pictures. I didn't see it in his normal tank but in the bath it does look like he's bloated from the side. Sorry its hard to see.

 

Update: I put him in an Epsom salt bath. Here are some more pictures. I didn't see it in his normal tank but in the bath it does look like he's bloated from the side. Sorry its hard to see.

Can you get a clearer picture of his fins? Also try not to move him around from tank to tank too much as that can stress fish out really bad.

 

Thank you, he is actually better now and I don't think it was dropsy. I did give him some medicine but I think he was just bloated and I over worried. I cleaned his tank and got him back in there and got him new food and he's doing a lot better.

 

The last photo looks like he may have ich. I see tiny white specks. It may just be something in the water and is only visible on the Betta because of the darker color than the container. If you do see the specks ON HIM, it is ich and you should start treatment.

 

The last photo looks like he may have ich. I see tiny white specks. It may just be something in the water and is only visible on the Betta because of the darker color than the container. If you do see the specks ON HIM, it is ich and you should start treatment.

Those are just bubbles from the water when he was in his salt bath, I see what you mean though! They aren't there now. Thanks for looking out!

 

How much are you feeding him? I've seen overfed Bettas that look like yours. A Betta's stomach is the size of their eyeball. They should only be fed once a day (the instructions on your food probably say to feed him more often, but the instructions are written by someone who cares more about selling lots of fish food and less about the actual health of your Betta). A healthy Betta will usually not reject food, and in fact will beg for more every chance that they get. That doesn't mean you should feed them more than I just described.

I know it's hard not to panic when you're concerned, but moving him around, giving medicine, and doing epsom salt baths all at the same time is not a good idea when you're not even sure if you have a problem and what that problem is. That can cause a huge amount of stress which will cause him to become ill if he was not before, or kill him if he was ill.

What you need to be focusing on first is water quality. He should be in a fully cycled tank with 0 ammonia. You should be testing the water regularly and doing frequent water changes. He needs to be in a large enough tank (more than 5 gallons). You should be cleaning it properly, so as not to destroy any beneficial bacteria.

 

He is in a 5 gallon tank, at the time his last full water change was a few weeks before. He had a snail living with him before and the snail made the bottom fairly dirty but I got the snail his own tank now. I think Bloo was eating nematodes that were growing in the tank and that's how he got bloated. I also think the food he had wasn't the best for his digestive system. I was normally feeding him 2 two 3 pellets, usually 2 times a day which he seemed fine with. I recently got him Fluval Bug Bites which are small pieces and made of better ingredients. He seems to really like them.
And he did fine with the epsom salt bath, I think it helped the bloating and I monitored him to make sure he didn't appear stressed. I wasn't moving him around much, I just took him out of his normal tank until I could clean it, and put him in the bath.
He is doing great now, he's not bloated and he's full of energy.