Walmart Rescue Betta

I purchased a female betta at Walmart two days ago after seeing it floating on its side in a nasty bowl of water. It had been there for at least a week like that and the employees/managers never did anything for it apparently. It has a seriously enlarged swim bladder. It is visibly swollen near its tail. I have it in a heated unfiltered 2 gallon container for now to see if it will improve before I transfer it to an aquarium of its own. Temp is 78, water is treated with prime and all readings are normal. Since I brought it home, I fasted it one day to see if that would help. Checked water parameters and all is fine, but the tank bottom had no poop. So, I gave it one presoaked pellet to see if it would even eat. It did, but still no poop and no improvements. I looked closer and believe it has Velvet as well.

So, what are my best chances for saving this betta? Do, I treat the Velvet and fast in hopes to correct the swim bladder issue? Do, I give it medicated food incase it has a bacterial infection or do I give it another medication? Or do I just wait and see. I tried to see if it would take a pea yesterday and it wouldn't even attempt it.

 

in an unfiltered 2g.....I would aI'm for partial water changes everyday. imo, full water changes would stress her out even further. good using the prime....that will help a lot.

you could medicate...but not knowing what's wrong might make it harder. you could try betta fix, or is it pimafix. or melafix. I forget. I *think* one of those is kind of a general medicine that might help. I generally don't medicate, so i'm not too sure.

but if she's on her side, it doesn't sound good at this point.

welcome to fishlore!

 

This is kind of important for everybody to know; it's on here somewhere but burried in old threads. Bettafix and melafix are not only the same chemical, the instructions call for the same dosage (I know somebody won't believe me but if you do the math, you'll see). Bettafix is more dilute than melafix, so you'd use a larger volume of bettafix than melafix, however the actually amount of the active ingredient that the fish receive from one medication vs the other (if you follow the instructions on the bottle) is the same. THIS DOES NOT MEAN THE SAME VOLUME!

I buy it as melafix, because it's much cheaper that way, the only thing is that it's much easier to dose a small container with an eyedropper than with the cap that comes with it (this is why many people think they're different). It's still cheaper to buy an eyedropper from a pharmacy or grocery store and a bottle of melafix than one bottle of bettafix.

I'd highly recommend it as a general, very gentle antibiotic and anti-inflamatory, especially if:
1) you're using it on a fish that is stressed aside from being sick
2) you're not entirely sure what's wrong
3) you're using it in a relatively new tank (it's a mild antibiotic and ime doesn't interfere with good bacteria in the same way that a stronger antibiotic can)

If you've never used it before, don't be freaked out by the smell; it's made from teatree oil, which has a very strong odor.

 

I've read that melafix can be toxic for bettas. Is that true?

 

Also, the poor fish finally flipped over and now I can see his other eye is really messed up. It's either so cloudy I can't see it, or it's gone. I've heard not to mix medicines, so is there something that treats velvet and popeye or should I treat velvet first and then popeye? This is so confusing.