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Here a several links to pics I took of a female betta I have who is EXTREMELY fat. She has always been chubby, but has gotten big like this in the last week or so:

You have to cut and paste them into the browser, sorry.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v436/Beefshank/fish/DSC00555.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v436/Beefshank/fish/DSC00554.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v436/Beefshank/fish/DSC00553.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v436/Beefshank/fish/DSC00552.jpg

I thought she was constipated, so I isolated her, fed her a pea, and waited. The next day, there was a big weird looking poop in there, so I figured that was the start of her getting better. For the next 2 days I didn't feed her, and nothing more came out. So I gave her another pea, and then another big weird looking poop came out. So now I think the poops are just the peas, which if the peas are getting through over night, then I guess she is not constipated right?

I don't think it's dropsey, as her scales look fine, and she has looked like this for over a week now.

I think I remember reading something about female fish getting eggs stuck inside them and getting bloated from that. So maybe that's it? There are no male bettas with her if that makes a difference.

To be fair, she didn't balloon up to this from a skinny fish, all my female bettas (I have 5) are chubby as they like to eat the catfish waffers after they eat their floating food. But still, she just doesn't look good.

She does seem swim just fine though, so maybe she is just very fat.

Any suggestions or comments?

thanks

-Dennis


Last edited by Beefshank at 23-Aug-2005 20:42

well, not sure, but just keep an eye out for drospy,

also can some1 answer me this question:

do peas harm the bettas, i have heard alot of storys about bloated bettas, and they were all feed peas.

My paradise fish did this a while ago. She was releasing her eggs and looked really swollen for a couple days, but she got it right after a while. It only becomes a problem when they can't release the eggs (egg bound). I'm not sure what to do then since that never happened to me, but someone else can probably tell you.

my female betta did that when she was full of eggs. but i did have her in a tank with another male betta, someone told me they would kill eachother, but they lived in harmony :hrugs:: anyways... thats what mine looked like too. she eventually laid the eggs and was normal again.

*Chelle*
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I love the fishes cuz they're SOOO delicious...

She may just be fat because she is full of eggs. However, she may be eggbound. Eggbinding is a serious and lethal, but fortunately not very common ailment caused by an egg becoming lodged as it exits the female's body. The rest of the eggs become infected, and it is this infection which kills the affected fish. Often, the belly of an eggbound female will become very dark coloured. Other symptoms include lethargy, loss of appetite, and the fish may even rub itself against objects in the tank. The only way to help is with a med meant to treat internal infections. Watch her for any of the above symptoms. If she is eating and acting normally, she is probably just full of eggs.

Bettachris- peas are used to help constipated bettas get a move on, they don't hurt, but they don't always help either.

Well, it's been a couple more days now, and no real change, if anything, she has gotten fatter.

I did notice some of her scales sticking out slightly, but it is only in the area where she is fat, and they aren't out very far, and it hasn't gotten worse in 2 days. I think she is just stretched out so far they can't help but stick out. I have had fish get dropsey, and it looked different. The scales stuck out really far, and it was all the scales, not just the ones around the fat area. But in any case, it made me decide to keep her seperate from the rest a little longer.

She doesn't seem to have any symptoms of...anything really, except she is very very fat. She has an apetite (although I didn't feed her for several days while I was checking for constipation, so I'm sure she was really hungry.) Her belly isn't really dark, and she seems to have energy (not that she needs much in a 2 1/2 gallon tank with no current, but she does swim around.)

I'm gonna keep observing for dropsy, but I would like to stick her back in the community tank as I figure the extra swimming she does in there just might giggle her around enough to jar the eggs loose. So how long before I can be sure it's not dropsy? It usually works pretty quickly doesn't it?

thanks,

-Dennis

I feed my Betta peas about once a week and he eats them up ... but then again he eats anything ... even flakes when he had tank mates!

i had a male betta get dropsy once, and it looked like what you describe (the scales sticking out) gives it a pinecone look. i've heard there's nothing they can do once the dropsy shows, i lost my male a couple of months ago, havent gotten another one from walmart since. but.... just keep an eye out. hopefully she's just egg-bound.

*Chelle*
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I love the fishes cuz they're SOOO delicious...

But this doesn't look like a pinecone, at least not yet. And as I said, it doesn't seem to be getting worse. When my platy had dropsy, she went from no symptoms, to all the symtpoms and dead within 24 hours. This fish has been fat for about 2 weeks now.

Also, with dropsy, the scales easily stuck out so far you could tell from any angle, with these scales, you can't tell they are out at all unless you look down from the top. It's really pretty minor. But there certainly is something wrong. And dead from dropsy or dead from egg-bound-ness is dead. I do hope she gets better.

-Dennis

Well, unfortunetly she did not get better. Today when I came home, I saw she had what looked like a missing scale. About 2 hours later, that area was a large, torn open wound with something organic hanging out of it about an inch! It looked terrible! She was still swimming as always, and didn't seem to mind. I even gave her some food, and she ate it up. But I knew if it was getting worse that fast, she wouldn't make it much longer. So after she had her dinner, I put her to sleep .

It was very sad.

I would guess it was dropsy, as the scales did poke out a bit more, but still nothing like what I saw the first time I had a fish get it. But as I stated in a previous post, if this was dropsy, then I've had 2 fish get it, and they were VERY different in time frames.

Anyway, I wish I could have given a happy ending, but we can't always control those things I guess.

Thanks for the help everybody. I really appreciate it.

-Dennis

Thats a rough thing to have to do.

My female betta is also fat, she occasionally dropsey's and recover normally by adding salt to the water. She is in a 25G tank at the mo.

I think judging by the shape of my girl and her tendancy to sit on the floor of the tank, (plus the fact that her sister went the same way) she has some form of cancer growth in her body. When she is n't pinconining one side has a distinct lump. Peaches had that too, she swum around and ate loads till one day she died. they were sisters. At the moment I am just waiting it out and wondering if I should put her sleep.

I really admire the fact that you could, sorry it didn't work out.

GFG



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Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one's definition of your life; define yourself.
Harvey S. Firestone

Thanks, it was hard. Harder than I thought it would be. But now, a couple days later, I'm very glad I did it so that she wouldn't continue to suffer.

I hope your fish pulls through though. I've never heard of dropsy coming and going. It sounds like a pretty unique situation. Maybe it's a good sign!

best of luck!

-Dennis