# Why is my Betta fish not swimming around?? Really worried



## caryjo420 (Nov 6, 2013)

I have a male Dragonscale Betta, Silas, who usually swims around his tank a lot and is usually pretty feisty. I have had him for about 5 months now, he spent about two months in a 2.5 gallon, heated and filtered tank that I cleaned weekly. I now have him in a 5 gallon heated and filtered tank that I also clean weekly. I feed him a pinch of tetra blood worms once a day. About a month ago one of his fins were torn in two places, I changed his water 50% every day for a week and then began doing 25% water changes every day for 2 weeks and have just gotten back on the once a week cleaning. I add one tablespoon of aquarium salt to his tank when its cleaned for his tears. His fin has begun growing back and is about 1/4 of the way repaired. In the last two days I have noticed that he is only sitting in one place at the bottom of his tank. He did eat this morning but is still just sitting at the bottom of his tank. Any ideas on why hes not swimming around?

Thank you


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## Xeek (Sep 28, 2012)

He could be constipated, especially considering what you feed him. Worms and flake food arent really natural for him and will likely stop him up (especially the flakes).

Feed him betta pellets, they're made with the proper nutrition for him - and instead of bloodworms feed him brine shrimp (the frozen kind).

Bloodworms aren't good for bettas, brine shrimp will usually be just as delicious but contain the much needed fiber your betta needs to keep his digestion going.

So what to do?
If you can go ahead and get some brine shrimp, feed him a couple and don't feed him anything else (fiber helps constipation). You can also try not feeding him for a couple of days and wait for all that in him to pass - then begin feeding him the proper food.

I'm surprised he even eats flakes - my bettas usually refuse it. It's almost as if you're feeding your lil guy cheese all this time and nothing else . Imagine if you were on a diet like that.... Now its surprising he hasn't had a constipation issue in all this time, but hey you can smoke cigarettes half your life without a problem and BAM lung issues.


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## Xeek (Sep 28, 2012)

Oh also you could try some bettafix. Its somewhat of an antibiotic, but follow the instructions, it can be toxic if you don't and it may not be safe for any other fish. Also you can try cranking his heater up. My bettas prefer 80F but when they get sick I can ease it up to 84+ (Don't go to 90 for sure, or you'll have cooked fish snacks).


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## sainthogan (Sep 27, 2012)

+1 to the bloodworms, it is like feeding him candy. Find him a good quality pellet, but keep in mind, he may not want to eat to eat them because you've only been feeding him bloodworms, it could take a week or two without feeding any bloodworms before he will be willing to eat them.


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## Hallyx (Jun 11, 2011)

Around here, the most often recommended quality pellets are Omega One Betta and New Life Spectrum thera A.


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## LizzyP (Jun 21, 2012)

How long were you adding salt? Salt can be beneficial BUT can be harmful to their kidneys if used for more than the recommended amount of time, which I believe is usually 10 days.


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