My Bettas going to explode in 10,9,8....

[Luinhir]

I bought a new Betta about 3 weeks ago and I always buy them sick, so I can fix them. There weren't any in the store that were sick except this one that was bloated, which isn't an emergency but I bought him because he was gorgeous. I didn't feed him because it was obvious that he had had enough food and I waited and waited but he didn't get any smaller so I thought maybe he's just naturally big. So I fed him once a few days ago and he got even bigger. So I said to my self, "OK, I'll fast him again." He hasn't been given any food for 4 days and he just keeps on getting bigger and bigger. And now he also has pop eye. Earlier today I gave him Melafix to help the pop eye and hours later I noticed not only is he obviously painfully bloated from the side but it's way obvious from the front. It looks like he's always flaring so I'm setting up a hospital tank right now and I'm going to use Betta Revive, which has always worked wonders for my other sick fish that I've bought, although I don't see how it would help with bloating. Does anyone know why he's getting so big? Tumors don't grow that fast do they?

[Luinhir]

His fins aren't clamped, which is strange. And he's moving around just dandy, but that can't speak for everything, there's no way this is normal.

[Luinhir]

It's starting to look more and more like Dropsy. But I know that it's caused by dirty water and his water isn't dirty. He's in a 20 gallon with a heater at 79 degrees, plants, tank decor for hiding and a filter. I do 10-25 percent water changes every week. I usually have the tank split in two with another betta on the other side, but right now he's the only one in it.

Although, he was already larger than usual when I bought him and we all know pet stores suck. If it is Dropsy I'm sure that's where it started.

[honeythorn]

It could be acute Dropsy, which can occur quite suddenly/qiuckly.

It say's here ( I reading one of my many books ) that it is pretty much incurable.

It lists the possible causes as follows :

Organ failure - Could be
Excessive sodium chloride levels - See if you get a test done?
High nitrate levels - shouldn't be this since you are doing regular small water changes, but he more than likely was exposed to this in the shop, espescially if kept in those tiny cups.
Bacteria - Could be, again from the shop most likely
Poor/unsuitable diet. - No idea, I assume his diet is betta food and hopefully some live foods such as daphnia or bloodworm.

[Cottontail]

Sounds like acute dropsy to me as well. I've read that treating with Octozin as soon as symptoms are noticed, may help. Dropsy can be caused by a number of pathogens, but in this case it sounds to be brought on by a bacterial or fungal infection, etc. In that case, I'd suggest treating with Paragon.

Dropsy usually isn't curable by the time symptoms appear. The bloating is caused by inflation, if you will, of internal organs. At this point, it's often too far gone. Still, I'd give it a try.

Good luck :)

[Luinhir]

The scales are starting to raise, Euthanize?

[Cottontail]

That decision is entirely up to you. You can go through with the treatment and see what happens. Take into consideration that this will be painful whether the fish recovers or not. In my experience with dropsy, none of the fish have recovered.

If you do choose to euthanize the fish, I'd suggest over anesthetizing with clove oil as the most humane way...

Sorry to hear his situation worsened :(

[Luinhir]

Well, I went into my room around 3:30pm to check on him and he was worse. The scales were raised even more, he was gasping and he was floating at the top, not completely on his side but he had a tilt. So I decided to set the little guy free.

I've always used the Clove Oil.