What’s wrong with my Siamese Fighting Fish?
by Aquaboy on Sunday, May 30th, 2010 | 4 Comments
My fish has been lying – not staying low, but actually lying on its side – at the bottom of his tank for the entire day. Whenever I fed him earlier, he swam up to the top, but once he got a mouthful he sunk again pretty quickly.
Also, his head is thrown waaaaay back; his entire body is an arch.
This is something to do with his swim bladder I’m pretty sure, but what exactly is up? And has his time come, or will a mashed pea and some fasting fix it?
I turned on the light, and saw that yes, his scales were fluffed out…
And his little gills had stopped moving…
RIP Cobalt “Coby” 2005-2009
You were a pretty little fishie.
Ah, well, he can still be pretty… he’ll decompose nicely under the shade of my rose bush 
It sounds a lot like Swim bladder in which a par-boiled green pea can help alleviate, but you need to look for 1 very important physical characteristic and that is Pine-coning (scales sticking out). This is a very distinct suggestion of Dropsy, a condition at that stage which is not curable (there is no documentation of this) and euthanasia or making the fish as comfortable as possible until it dies is in order.
If there is no pine coning, definitely try the pea and make sure the Betta eats it and wait it out. If this does not work, try an anti-bacterial medication which is Betta safe. If you can find one that is in food form, the better.
our goldfish did that before, and we found out he had a parasite, so we got parasite cleaner and he got better
My Betta just recovered from Swim Bladder problem and it took 3 weeks. He fasted for about 2 weeks. No poop visable at all. Then he seemed to right himself and started swimming around again so I fed him some fruit flies. He still seemed weak and pale. Then suddenly he pooped a really large dropping and since then he is almost back to normal. He wouldn’t eat any of the peas though. The fasting really helped although I was so afraid he’d starve to death. He was laying on the bottom sideways. His body was arched. Not too interested in food. I added some aquarium salt to his water change. Kept the water level lower so he could easily gulp air.
My fish is so sick… sinking sleeping on the bottom on its side and so on… it still loves food, but today iv stopped feeding it and i gave it a pea… now im just going to leave it and see what happens… i love my fish aka Sushi so much i really hope he gets better and starts blowing bubbles again…