Betta Just Started Breathing Heavy With Possible Past Sbd

Tank

What is the water volume of the tank? 5.5 gallon
How long has the tank been running? since April 9th
Does it have a filter? Yes
Does it have a heater? Yes
What is the water temperature? 80 - 81F
What is the entire stocking of this tank? (Please list all fish and inverts.) male betta

Maintenance
How often do you change the water? at least once a week
How much of the water do you change? 30%
What do you use to treat your water? Prime
Do you vacuum the substrate or just the water? both

*Parameters - Very Important
Did you cycle your tank before adding fish? Yes
What do you use to test the water? Mainly API Master kit, but use Tetra strips if I don't have a lot of time
What are your parameters? We need to know the exact numbers, not just “fine” or “safe”.

Previous reading done Saturday the 25th at 4:56pm (normally what I see on weekly changes)
Ammonia: 0ppm
Nitrite: 0ppm
Nitrate: ~20ppm
pH: 7.2
Followed by a ~40% water change and very good vacuum

Last reading done at 11:31am today
Ammonia: 0.25ppm
Nitrite: 0ppm
Nitrate: 5-10ppm
pH: 7.2
Followed by a 50% water change

Feeding
How often do you feed your fish? two times a day, except on Sundays when I feed once
How much do you feed your fish? 2 of what ever I'm giving him
What brand of food do you feed your fish? Omega One pellets, Fluval tropical bug bites, and San Francisco Bay Brand frozen blood worms, brine shrimp, and I just bought some mysis shrimp today
Do you feed frozen or freeze-dried foods? Only frozen

Illness & Symptoms
How long have you had this fish? since May 14th (two weeks tomorrow)
How long ago did you first notice these symptoms? last night
In a few words, can you explain the symptoms? heavy breathing, long rest periods, and lots of sleeping
Have you started any treatment for the illness? today
Was your fish physically ill or injured upon purchase? yes
How has its behavior and appearance changed, if at all?
Don't think his appearance has changed, but he's no where near as active as usual. Spending long periods at the bottom of tank breathing.

Explain your emergency situation in detail.
When I got Pidge, he had damage to his fins. Likely a combo of fin bitting and early fin rot. Within a few days of clean water and almond leaves the edges of his fins showed signs of getting better and less ragged. In this time I also noticed that he had a slight bump at the back of his body; I now believe this to be possible related to past sbd issues. Pidge is normally very active and loves swimming/zooming around his tank, exploring all the nooks and holes, and doing acrobatics. His tail does bother him sometimes and gets heavy/cumbersome too. I've done my best to give him as many resting places, in the best/most ideal places, as possible.

This is from the first night I had him (he loves this corner for some reason)


Here he's greeting me after work, before asking for food (not in picture)

This was taken a week ago, but you can really see bump in the back (sorry its blurry, he was zooming)

On Saturday, I did my weekly water change and made some changes to his tank lay out to make it more to his likes and desired that I'd observed. I also added 1/2mL Seachem Stress guard to help with his fin damage instead of Prime per Seachem's instructions.
Before Saturday's change (taken two days after I got Pidge)


After Saturday's change (taken last night)

Last night, I was sitting in the chair we have by his tank when I noticed he was breathing heavier then normal and resting more. I didn't think much of it, since I'd read and had people comment that Betta's can act up after changes to their environments. I just figured, I'd see what he was like in the morning and do a water test.

This morning, his breathing was much worse. He did eat his pellets, but he tired easily. When I did my water test today (results above). I was confused by the ammonia reading since I haven't had an ammonia reading in my tank in over 2 1/2 weeks. (Think might be the Stressguard isn't as good as Prime at dechlorinate water). After doing the 50% water change, Pidge seemed to be getting a little better, still tired but a little more his normal self. Then he took a bit of a nose dive and seems to be back to what he was like before the change. This is him about half an hour ago, breathing heavy again. There has been no change since.


Is there anything else I can do for him beside keeping the clean?

 

I’m going to get some eyes on him for us. Repolie Momgoose56 Rtessy can y’all look at this little one? Please.

 

I have to be prepared for tomorrow and can't fully go into depth with this for now. What I can say for now is that the bump at the back of his body is perfectly normal, most bettas will have their swim bladder naturally protruding from their sides.

 

Are his scales raised, almost like a pinecone? I can't tell if there is any dropsy from the picture.

 

My hubby says that last picture looks pretty bad. I would do a 50% water change, temp matched and treated with prime. Let us know if there’s any improvement.
Are you comfortable using aquarium salt? It helps with gill function.

 

So, I'm doing this from my phone in the app, so apologies in advance for typing issues.

MaximumRide14 I have seen pinconeing, I've been watching for it, but I haven't been able to get a good look at him from the top down. I've only been able to view him from the bottom up and all the pictures I have are blurry action shots.

Gypsy13 that last pic was from Sunday night. Not sure why it's at the end there, but I did do as your husband recommended. Please thank you husband for me, always happy to know my observations and treatment method were correct. As for aquarium salt, never used it so I don't know.

When I got up this morning, Pidge seemed better but still not him normal self. He's still resting a lot and his backend is deffently heavy.

I fed him one pellet soaked in tank water. Which he ate, but spit out a small amount and had no interest in demanding his second pellet. Which is strange because like most Bettas Pidge loves his food and knows that he gets two pellets in the mornings.

Finally got my picture of Pidge this morning to upload.


So, when I got home this evening Pidge was sleeping in a sheltered corner of tank. His appetite was better, but still not quite normal. It may have also helped that I give him frozen foods in the evenings. He is also much more active this evening then this morning and yesterday. I have yet to see any heavy breathing today.

Both pictures where taken after I fed him this evening.

I also did another water test, followed by about 20% water change with the correct dosing of Prime this time.

Ammonia 0.25ppm
Nitrite 0ppm
Nitrate 5ppm (this is about what's in my tap)
7.2 pH

Pidge's activity level did spike some after the water change.

 

Keep doing water changes at least every 4 days until the ammonia is 0. I’m so glad he’s moving and eating!

 

Gypsy13 thanks so much. I plan to do another test and 10-20% water change tonight, so I'll keep you updated.

Repolie thanks for the message yesterday. I checked my Bettas at work, and they have the same bump, its just nearly invisible unless your looking for it. My work bettas are also bigger and I think older then Pidge, so that could be part of the difference.

Things this morning continue as they did last night. Pidge is a little more active and seems to be hungry so I let him have both his pellets this morning.

I did have a question, was this a normal reaction to a sudden spike in ammonia or could it be from something else? Both my work bettas went through fish-in cycles with this level of ammonia, but never showed these symptoms. Just want to know what happened to cause this, so it doesn't happen again.

 

Gypsy13 thanks so much. I plan to do another test and 10-20% water change tonight, so I'll keep you updated.

Repolie thanks for the message yesterday. I checked my Bettas at work, and they have the same bump, its just nearly invisible unless your looking for it. My work bettas are also bigger and I think older then Pidge, so that could be part of the difference.

Things this morning continue as they did last night. Pidge is a little more active and seems to be hungry so I let him have both his pellets this morning.

I did have a question, was this a normal reaction to a sudden spike in ammonia or could it be from something else? Both my work bettas went through fish-in cycles with this level of ammonia, but never showed these symptoms. Just want to know what happened to cause this, so it doesn't happen again.

It could well be. Water changes and testing are very important depending on the spike it could be fatal to some fish. Keep updating.

 

I've continued with daily ~20-30% even though I wasn't able to test the water with my API kit because I may or may not have forgotten to rinse out my tubes that took two days to dry. -_- During this time I used my Tetra test strips to keep a rough eye on things and their results reflect the ones stated below.

Despite this and the fact that I bumpted him a couple of times with the airline tube I've got set up with a wooden bbq stick (without the point) to do small water changes/spot vacs, Pidge seems to be getting better. He's got his normal activity level back, eating normally again, and is checking everything out in the tank.

This was Pidge on Thursday, May 30th, morning


He's been really fascinated by the filter for the last 48hrs, which I think is why when I woke up this morning his analfin had holes and rips in it. He's also been nibbling on his tail fin again, since Thursday evening.

This is Pidge this morning
(sorry its blurry, he was doing his "Good morning! Are you going to feed my now?" dance)


I also noticed this evening that he seems to be only using one of his pectoral fins when ever possible. Both fins are really hard to see because the one he's using all the time is completely clear with maybe a little color and the one he's favoriting is clear with a tiny bit of red streaking through going from his body out in a starburst pattern. But I just took a break from writing this to give him his dinner and Pidge seems to be swimming about fine now. I will be keeping an eye on this still.

Current tank parameters are:
Ammonia: 0.5ppm (either I read my tube wrong on Monday or it kept rising)
Nitrite: 0ppm
Nitrate: 5ppm (from my tap)
I did a 50-60% water change with good vacuum and gave my filter cartage and filter material in my in/out-takes a rinse off. I also double checked all of the original items in my tank for rough spots (new ones I know are good) and the made sure the zip ties holding the filter material around my in-take where positioned in a way the he couldn't cut himself on (my heater sits right next to it).

[I always use Prime when doing water changes, unless I've stated otherwise]

I also wanted to mention that I've been trying to turn my tank light off earlier at night and at the last possible minute in the mornings.

In other more entertaining news, my sister has taken it upon herself to try and rename him Cat-snack.

 

The parameters are throwing me off. You said you tank is cycled but you have 0.5 ammonia and 5 nitrates from the tap. You had 20 nitrate on the 25th. Maybe your cycle crashed?
Also are you rinsing the filter media with tap water?

 

The parameters are throwing me off. You said you tank is cycled but you have 0.5 ammonia and 5 nitrates from the tap. You had 20 nitrate on the 25th. Maybe your cycle crashed?
Also are you rinsing the filter media with tap water?

Welcome to club confusion! I'm a bit confused about this situation too. At this point, I think my cycle may have crashed.

My tank was cycled with reading of 0ppm of ammonia, 0ppm of nitrite, and an average 20ppm of nitrate until last Saturday the 25th, when I make some changes to my tank lay out. I clearly did something at this time to cause an ammonia spike.

I always rinse my filter material off in old tank water. The only time tap water ever touches my tank is after dechlorinater has been add to either the 2L pitcher I use or to the tank itself.

 

Man that sucks. I guess just keep up with the frequent water changes. I'm glad he's on the way to being his old self again.

 

Using the strips will give you quirky readings. You may want to invest in a filter intake sponge. Keep his fins from getting sucked in. Crazy fish. Cat-snack indeed. That was just mean! Cute but mean.

 

Using the strips will give you quirky readings. You may want to invest in a filter intake sponge. Keep his fins from getting sucked in. Crazy fish. Cat-snack indeed. That was just mean! Cute but mean.

I use the strips as more of present/absent of ammonia, nitrite, and high/low nitrate. The pH part of the test is completely unreliable for me.

I actually switched my in-take from being covered with a panty hose to a piece of top fin u-media on Thursday. I rejusted the zip ties yesterday so the sharpe parts are now located facing the heater with bits of floss covering them.

Yes, Cat-snack is mean to both Pidge and my cat, who I don't think knows what he is or cares.

(Sorry for any type-os, my phone wants to autocorrect everything tonight)