# Female betta suddenly fat



## Blacklight (Oct 11, 2012)

After going through the hell of attempting to save my male betta from ick and failing miserably, Today, we noticed that our female's belly has out of nowhere gotten bloated and fat. The scales of her belly have lost some color due to the stretching. The thing is that she's still behaving normally, still excitedly swimming around and begging for food (she's a master at this).

Now I've never raised a female betta before. I'm only used to males and what issues look like on them.

My wife feeds her two pellets in the morning and then she gets three pellets in the evening about 12-13 hours later so I don't think that she's being overfed.

Do the females go through egg cycles if there's no male around? She's never been exposed to our male. We kept them in different rooms.

I told my wife not to feed her for a couple days to see if it goes away. I'll try to get a picture posted later on if I can get one as my camera is horrible and doesn't have a way to shut off autofocus to keep it from focusing on the glass of the tank rather than the fish.


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## LebronTheBetta (Apr 23, 2012)

Oh yes, females get eggy even if there's no male. There are eggs in her ovisitor so she's pretty normal.  This natural process tends to worry us owners on their well being. However, the eggs don't cause dull colors. But if she's acting normal, then I wouldn't worry.


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## shellieca (Jul 12, 2012)

Does she have any tankmates? Do you feed anything other than pellets?


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## Blacklight (Oct 11, 2012)

> However, the eggs don't cause dull colors.


Well, her body has had no color loss. She looks fine as far as her color. She's still dark blue and red. What I mean was that it seems that the scales on her belly seem to be... not duller, but... maybe a little transparent due to the streaching? 



> Does she have any tankmates? Do you feed anything other than pellets?


Nope. She's just a single fish in a nice big 5 gallon tank. The only thing she gets is pellets.


Is there any way to verify whether this is eggs or if she's bloated from some other thing like constipation? I have no experience with female bettas at all so I don't know a thing about what to look for.


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## LebronTheBetta (Apr 23, 2012)

Oh, like the scales near her ventrals are a bit pale? That's normal, don't worry. She shouldn't be able to get bloated on 5 pellets throughout the day. If you're really concerned then 2 pellets 2 times per day won't hurt. If you see some white dots coming out of her then those are eggs.


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## shellieca (Jul 12, 2012)

Blacklight said:


> Well, her body has had no color loss. She looks fine as far as her color. She's still dark blue and red. What I mean was that it seems that the scales on her belly seem to be... not duller, but... maybe a little transparent due to the streaching?
> 
> 
> 
> ...


You're doing fine with the fasting for a couple of days to see if there's any difference. Do you fast her normally? Most will fast them one day a week at a minimum. I have one female who, to me, always looks like she's about to explode after eating but she acts perfectly normal so I take this as her norm. My Bettas get 2-3 pellets per day, depending on the Betta, I also substitute frozen blood worms & Brine shrimp a couple times a week, with fasting every Friday.


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## Blacklight (Oct 11, 2012)

Okay. I can't get a picture of her. My camera just keeps focusing on the glass and she keeps zipping around all excited that I'm looking at her. Her personality is certainly not changed at all despite how fat she is now.

She's so fat that her ovipositor (that's the little white dot thingie sticking out a little bit under her, I assume) looks like it's pointing straight downward instead of pointing more to the back like it used to do. It looks like it's a belly button. Is this the eggs sign?


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## LebronTheBetta (Apr 23, 2012)

Maybe, maybe. It's not like it's going to fall out.


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## Blacklight (Oct 11, 2012)

Will she dump the unfertilized eggs on her own if this is what it is? 

There isn't enough pictures on the net of pregnant female bettas. All I keep finding is links to people who are breeding them and am finding nothing on what to look for if she has eggs but is not being bred.


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## LebronTheBetta (Apr 23, 2012)

Yep. There's a chance she'll eat them, it won't harm her.


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## Blacklight (Oct 11, 2012)

I think we need a guide specifically for talking about what to expect when raising a female betta. This "suddenly fat" thing hit us out of the blue and kind of scared me, considering what I went through with my male that didn't make it.
The only references I ever see to anyone having a female betta is only instructions for how to breed them. There's not really anything about people having females who aren't breeding them.
It would be nice if we could know to expect the female to get fat like this sometimes.

How often do they go through this?


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## Luimeril (Dec 29, 2010)

aahh, yes. it's always worrying, i know. the dullness of the scales on her belly is totally normal. i've a beautiful dark blue female who's belly gets silvery when she's all eggy. she even lets out her eggs and eats them! o-O not the first gal i had that did that, but it took me by surprise, since my other females just reabsorbs theirs, and i haven't had a gal that does that in over a year. and her previous owner never talked about her doing that. xD


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## Blacklight (Oct 11, 2012)

How long does it usually take for them to get skinny again?

It's scary because it looks like some kind of "bloat".


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## Luimeril (Dec 29, 2010)

varies from female to female. i had a gal last year who'd get fat, let out her eggs a day later, be all fat from eating them for another day. then, Fritzy has been all fat for a few days now.


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