I think my fish is dying

Blonde Box of Rocks and I have a betta fish that we've had for about 8 months. We generally feed Percy every day, or at worst every other day. I was told that fish are very finicky about their eating and it is generally better to underfeed them than overfeed them. We went down to Georgia-Florida this weekend, left a more-than-average amount of food for him before we left, and returned 3 days later.

He is still alive, but he seems very lethargic. We have put food in his bowl multiple times, cleaned his bowl, changed his water, and done just about everything we can to make him go back to being normal. I have yet to see him eat (he certainly doesn't rush to eat like he normally does.) He seems to float only at the top of the bowl and only really moves if provoked.

I know you obviously can't forcefeed a fish, and yeah it's a $5 betta, but is their any solution? Percy used to have an amusing-if-not-anthropomorphic personality and now I think the poor guy is dying. Can 3 days without food even kill a betta or is there maybe something else?

He could just be getting old. I had a betta fish live for 10 months once. Fish just don't live that long. Also, when you change water, and clean the bowl how do you do it? You are supposed to leave a 1/4 of the old water mixed in, and dechlorinate it for longest life. I didn't bother but I guess it doesn't hurt.

If your worried about blonde box of rocks, just replace the fish with another fish thats similar enough in looks to it.

Well a dirty filter is my first guess, in which case changing his water could have done more harm than good. Often ammonia can build in the water and cause the symptoms that you just mentioned.

After thinking it through, logic led me to believe that it could also be a water temperature issue. With Fall rolling in it's very easy to let the water temp dip a few degrees, which would also cause the same symptoms.

If it's not one of those things I don't know what to tell you.

My father raises betta fish.

Not feeding the fish for three days won't kill it if the fish was already healthy. My dad sometimes goes a week without feeding some of the fish. (He is a very forgetful person) Also the average lifespan for a healthy betta fish is about 3 years.

I'll ask my father what you should do.

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If your fish does die, I can sell you 10 baby betta fish for $20.

That's sad, but i don't think you had a hand in hurting your poor fishy by not feeding him for a few days. I wish I knew what to tell you. i'm sorry I couldn't be of more help. Maybe you could do some googling?

Sounds to me like you dumped a totally unecessary white butt ton of food in the bowl/tank/wherever he lives, poluted the christ out of the water, and your fishy probably got ammonia burn and now his gills don't function properly. My guess is the food sat there and rotted, and since he's probably in a small container it got pretty befouled over 3 days. You'd have been better off not feeding him at all, a betta can eat a few flakes or pellets a couple times a week and be totally healthy.

Not to flame but stuff like this seriously annoys me. I mean I know it's just a $5 betta but if you're going to get a pet learn how to take care of it properly even if it IS just a $5 betta.

The best you can do now is just keep the water clean, do not under any circumstances put any more food in the tank, and see what happens.

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Originally Posted by Cryptic

Sounds to me like you dumped a totally unecessary white butt ton of food in the bowl/tank/wherever he lives, poluted the christ out of the water, and your fishy probably got ammonia burn and now his gills don't function properly. My guess is the food sat there and rotted, and since he's probably in a small container it got pretty befouled over 3 days.

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I didn't even think about the food rotting. Ammonia just took a huge jump in the polls as the most likely culprit.

You should get a real pet like a dog, a cat, or a fish that costs $6.

Is it too cold in the tank?

deep fry it and eat it

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Originally Posted by Cryptic

The best you can do now is just keep the water clean, do not under any circumstances put any more food in the tank, and see what happens.

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Dad said this. Also he wants to sell you 20 baby betta fish for $30. It's a good deal.

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Originally Posted by KT_

Dad said this. Also he wants to sell you 20 baby betta fish for $30. It's a good deal.

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lmao what the hell is he gonna do with 20?

Actually putting them all in one tank could be interesting.

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Originally Posted by Anonymous d

lmao what the hell is he gonna do with 20?

Actually putting them all in one tank could be interesting.

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I dunno. Breed them? You can make a lot of money.

Also, betta fish that grow up in the same tank won't fight each other. However if you remove a betta and later reintroduce it to the same tank, it will fight with the other fish. Although if you do not feed them they will start eating each other.

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Originally Posted by KT_

I dunno. Breed them? You can make a lot of money.

Also, betta fish that grow up in the same tank won't fight each other. However if you remove a betta and later reintroduce it to the same tank, it will fight with the other fish. Although if you do not feed them they will start eating each other.

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That would be cruel, but entertaining.

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Originally Posted by KT_

Also, betta fish that grow up in the same tank won't fight each other. However if you remove a betta and later reintroduce it to the same tank, it will fight with the other fish. Although if you do not feed them they will start eating each other.

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Get a batch and put it into a fish bowl and make them fight. Let the victor mate endlessly and have its offspring repeat the process. You will have the most badass fish in a year or two.

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Originally Posted by Hare

Get a batch and put it into a fish bowl and make them fight. Let the victor mate endlessly and have its offspring repeat the process. You will have the most badass fish in a year or two.

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Word. You could be the Mike Vick of Betta fish.

So, Atmosfear, whatever happened to Percy?

Do fish handle mail well?


I wanna start betting with Fish fighting.

Nemo Vick will be my name.

You can ship them, but it's expensive. It usually requires Fed Ex overnight or something similar and shit tons of hot or cold packs, depending on where you're shipping to. You'll also need all the supplies like bags, boxes, styrofoam, and an O2 pump to put air into the bags - environmental air isn't good enough to ship fish in.

I'm going to avoid the trollbait and not get into the economic discussion of caring for a fish.

We have cut down his feeding considerably. He's now getting only a pinch about once a week. His bowl is generally cleaner than it was in the past (he has a bowl, not a tank; there's no filter, etc, because I'm not buying a $20-$30 tank for a $5 fish, plus his bowl is pretty tits.) Blonde Box of Rocks is keeping the water changed more regularly.

So far, Percy is hanging in there. Every once in a while he will have a burst of activity, and it seems that his fins are more active now than they were when we first got back (it's more rare that he is deathly still now, whereas he was mostly immobile a week ago.)

What can I expect in terms of improvement? Will he recover from ammonia poisoning or is it just impending doom at this point?

A bowl is actually fine for a betta. They're designed to live in still water, that's what the labyrinth system in their gills is for that lets them breathe surface air. The problem with a small enclosure is water chemistry, as you have just found out. In a larger tank/bowl/enclosure of choice, the water chemistry is much more stable.

Hard to say if he'll recover or not. It depends on how extensive the damage was. Just keep doing what you're doing is really the only treatment at this point.

And if you're referring to my comment, I wasn't trying to troll. I just think that no matter what animal you have, whether it's a $5 fish or a $5000 dog, you should know what the best way to care for it is and do that, or don't get the pet. How much the pet did or didn't cost is irrelevant.

Oh Atmosfear, just in case you didn't know here are some basic care tips:

1. De-chlorinate the new water before you change it.
2. Make sure the new water is the same temperature as the old water.

If he were human, I'd suggest the fish was constipated, particularly with lethargy after a binge (think cheese pizza fest). Has he been crapping?

A Google search confirmed this as a possibility; link to the treatment is here.

It's nice to see you back doctor_b.

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Originally Posted by doctor_b

If he were human, I'd suggest the fish was constipated, particularly with lethargy after a binge (think cheese pizza fest). Has he been crapping?

A Google search confirmed this as a possibility; link to the treatment is here.

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!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

modded (don't care if you accept; you don't have a choice)

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Originally Posted by Cryptic

A bowl is actually fine for a betta. They're designed to live in still water, that's what the labyrinth system in their gills is for that lets them breathe surface air. The problem with a small enclosure is water chemistry, as you have just found out. In a larger tank/bowl/enclosure of choice, the water chemistry is much more stable.

Hard to say if he'll recover or not. It depends on how extensive the damage was. Just keep doing what you're doing is really the only treatment at this point.

And if you're referring to my comment, I wasn't trying to troll. I just think that no matter what animal you have, whether it's a $5 fish or a $5000 dog, you should know what the best way to care for it is and do that, or don't get the pet. How much the pet did or didn't cost is irrelevant.

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In the real world, people make decisions based on margins. What is the marginal benefit of researching proper care for a $5000 dog? Greatly lowering the risk of losing a $5000 pet that should live for over 10 years. What is the marginal benefit of researching proper care for a $5 fish? Greatly lowering the risk of losing a $5 pet that should live for a few months.

My time is generally worth more than the $5 it costs to replace the fish. If the fish was going to live for a year and it dies in 6 months, I've lost $2.50. It's simple economics as to why a pet owner would worry less about the care of something with little to no monetary value compared to something with significant financial investment.

Which do you take better care of? Your $2000 TV or your $10 toaster?

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Originally Posted by KT_

Oh Atmosfear, just in case you didn't know here are some basic care tips:

1. De-chlorinate the new water before you change it.
2. Make sure the new water is the same temperature as the old water.

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We've always been sure to do that. Thanks.

In the real world, life has value and I'm not talking about dollar amounts. Maybe not to you, but to most people. And that's the only justification your outrageous line of argument deserves.

Care to explain how you differentiate between the value of the life of a fish in a bowl and the value of the life of a fish from the ocean sliced open on your dinner plate? How about the cows, chickens, and hogs we eat on a regular basis? Have you ever slapped a mosquito or stepped on a cockroach? How many substances do you eat in a day that weren't alive or generated at the expense of some living thing?

Life has surprisingly little value if you consider it objectively.

Well to be fair an adopted dog is worth fixing up if you love it enough and have the funds.

It's more about the IQ of the animal than the cost of initial purchase for most people. You can't be physically affectionate with a betta fish, but you can teach a dog to fetch and you can hug it. Higher species are valued more by humans as a general rule.

It's why buying fighting fish for a tournament is probably considered animal cruelty by PETA (what isn't?), but not illegal. Dog fights land you in court wearing a slick suit.

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Originally Posted by Atmosfear

Care to explain how you differentiate between the value of the life of a fish in a bowl and the value of the life of a fish from the ocean sliced open on your dinner plate? How about the cows, chickens, and hogs we eat on a regular basis? Have you ever slapped a mosquito or stepped on a cockroach? How many substances do you eat in a day that weren't alive or generated at the expense of some living thing?

Life has surprisingly little value if you consider it objectively.

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I'm a vegetarian, FYI. You guess why. And sure I've slapped a mosquito but let's not take this to extremes. I didn't voluntarily bring the mosquito into my life to care for.

My point is why be needlessly cruel to any pet, no matter what it is? A fish might not be a dog, and as sole mentioned you can't interact with it in the same way, but it's still alive and capable of feeling discomfort. If you don't know how to take care of your $5000 dog and it suffers, or you don't know how to take care of your $5 fish and it suffers, both are just as needlessly cruel since there's tons of information out there on the subject. Also my cat is a shelter cat, a regular domestic short hair, born profoundly deaf and in need of a tummy tuck because he's got a bad case of the neuter paunch. When he was little I paid $600 to get him cured of kennel cough, and he's the sweetest, funniest, most affectionate cat anyone could ever want. I'd pay that and 10 times that again if he needed it even though he's not "perfect" - I love him just as much, if not more than, any purebred cat I could have gotten for thousands of dollars because he's perfect to ME.

Anyone's views on animals isn't what this was about though, and I'm not going to start a flame war with you Atmosfear, so I'm not going to comment on it anymore. How is your fish doing now?

So you made a cost-benefit analysis and determined that the love you felt for the cat was more beneficial than the monetary cost of tending to his health. I made a cost-benefit analysis and determined that my time was worth more than the $5 it would take to replace a fish. You are willing to pay an increased cost to maintain an emotional connection, and I am not.

The point is that, as sole alluded to, the line is arbitrary. You value a fish but don't value a mosquito. As a vegetarian, you value a cow but do not value a field mouse/insect/etc. Hell, we can move further from ourselves into other kingdoms: you value the lives of animalia but not fungi. You value the life of eukaryotes but not prokaryotes. The more you zoom out your focus, the more arbitrary the line becomes. You're selecting the traits you value and protecting only those species that meet them. This is the major philosophical issue most people have with so-called animal-rights groups such as PETA: they have drawn the line at protecting what is convenient and visible, not what is logical and defensible.

I guess if there's a take-home message, it's that you are drawing an arbitrary line that is very different from where other people draw the line.

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Originally Posted by Atmosfear

So you made a cost-benefit analysis and determined that the love you felt for the cat was more beneficial than the monetary cost of tending to his health. I made a cost-benefit analysis and determined that my time was worth more than the $5 it would take to replace a fish. You are willing to pay an increased cost to maintain an emotional connection, and I am not.

The point is that, as sole alluded to, the line is arbitrary. You value a fish but don't value a mosquito. As a vegetarian, you value a cow but do not value a field mouse/insect/etc. Hell, we can move further from ourselves into other kingdoms: you value the lives of animalia but not fungi. You value the life of eukaryotes but not prokaryotes. The more you zoom out your focus, the more arbitrary the line becomes. You're selecting the traits you value and protecting only those species that meet them. This is the major philosophical issue most people have with so-called animal-rights groups such as PETA: they have drawn the line at protecting what is convenient and visible, not what is logical and defensible.

I guess if there's a take-home message, it's that you are drawing an arbitrary line that is very different from where other people draw the line.

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I'm not a member of PETA. They're extremist motherfuckers that make anyone who supports animal rights look like a raving psycho. I don't think everyone should convert to vegetarianism. I'm not vegan - I eat cheese, eggs, honey, milk, etc. I actually support animal testing as long as it's done ethically with regard to the animal's wellbeing during it's time as a test subject, even if that ends in euthansia, because I understand drugs tested on animals have saved the lives of people I care for. PETA nutbags don't THINK, they just follow. I could care less if people want to eat meat - it's just not right for me. However, I don't think any animal should be needlessly mistreated for any reason. And that includes not knowing how to take care of it. My question to you would then be why did you get the fish if it doesn't have value to you? It must have had SOME value or you wouldn't have purchased it in the first place.

As for "not valuing" fungi or plants, there's the little logistic issue of "I've got to eat something".

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Originally Posted by Cryptic

I'm not a member of PETA. They're extremist motherfuckers that make anyone who supports animal rights look like a raving psycho. I don't think everyone should convert to vegetarianism. I'm not vegan - I eat cheese, eggs, honey, milk, etc. I actually support animal testing as long as it's done ethically with regard to the animal's wellbeing during it's time as a test subject, even if that ends in euthansia, because I understand drugs tested on animals have saved the lives of people I care for. PETA nutbags don't THINK, they just follow. I could care less if people want to eat meat - it's just not right for me. However, I don't think any animal should be needlessly mistreated for any reason. And that includes not knowing how to take care of it. My question to you would then be why did you get the fish if it doesn't have value to you? It must have had SOME value or you wouldn't have purchased it in the first place.

As for "not valuing" fungi or plants, there's the little logistic issue of "I've got to eat something".

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I still don't get how you can say he doesn't know how to treat it correctly, what he did seemed common sense to me. If I'm leaving my dog home for a night I give him a bigger feed before we leave, I don't go and research that it's just what I'd do seeming he wouldn't have food over night. Of course it has value to him he said in previous posts that the fish had a wonderful personality and was very active until this happened as soon as he got back and saw what had happened he did what he thought was right by cleaning the bowl etc... if he was not caring for the animal then he would have left it as is and the fish would probably be dead by now. Maybe it was his fault for putting that much food in but at the time that wasn't known and by the sounds of it they're doing all they can to reverse the cause and get him healthy again.

Not everybody is like you and will pay a shit load of money to fix their pet, my Aunty and Uncles dog has a really bad hip problem and the vet said that he'd deteriorate in 1 year and need to be put down unless they pay some rediculous amount like $5000 to have surgery, they don't have $5000 laying around so they've chosen to put him down, does that mean that they don't care or value their dog? before he had his hip problems they walked him every day he has his own kennel and gets fed well and is treated extremely well. I got a kitten fromt he shelter and he had kennel cough and had the best personality I ever had he was so cute when I hung a scrwed up bit of paper from the roof and he speant hours trying to catch it but I still couldn't afford to get the treatment so we decided to get him put down.

Well I'm not saying Atmosfear intentionally abused his fish and I guess I could have come off as saying that. What I am saying is that if he had read about how to take care of it, or any fish, before he got it he would have known that overfeeding is like a huge no-no as far as fishkeeping is concerned. He didn't set out to do anything malicious, but still didn't care for the fish correctly so the bottom line is ultimately the same.

I see your point with the dog with the hip problem, especially if it's an older dog. I mean if my cat gets cancer at 16 years old I'm not going to put him through expensive and painful chemo to get what? Maybe another 2 years with him? Maybe? That would be senseless of me and cruel to him. Instead I'd just make him comfortable to the point where that would no longer be possible and then I'd put him down.

I don't agree with your choice for your kitten though. My cat only took $600 to cure because he'd had it for about 2 months and it was so entrenched in his lungs and sinuses that he failed 3 antibiotics, so there was no choice but to megadose him IV style at the vets. Your kitten would have likely been cured by a $60 vet visit and $15 or so of antibiotics. I guess I can't know that for sure but it seems to me like he would have been worth $75 or so. Especially since, once cured and barring anything else unexpected, you could have had 15 or so good years with him. That's what I mean in how much or how little you value something.

And believe it or not I do understand the "it's just a $5 fish" argument to a point. Seriously if it gets cancer or something, just get a new fish. I have fish too and I fully realize that while I like my fish and even have a favorite angelfish that I've had for 8 years or so and have gotten pretty attached to, I'm not as attached to my fish as I am to my cat. There are degrees of value, at least to me, I just personally see no reason for not knowing how to care for any living thing and having it pay the consequences in the end.

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Originally Posted by Cryptic

Well I'm not saying Atmosfear intentionally abused his fish and I guess I could have come off as saying that. What I am saying is that if he had read about how to take care of it, or any fish, before he got it he would have known that overfeeding is like a huge no-no as far as fishkeeping is concerned. He didn't set out to do anything malicious, but still didn't care for the fish correctly so the bottom line is ultimately the same.

I see your point with the dog with the hip problem, especially if it's an older dog. I mean if my cat gets cancer at 16 years old I'm not going to put him through expensive and painful chemo to get what? Maybe another 2 years with him? Maybe? That would be senseless of me and cruel to him. Instead I'd just make him comfortable to the point where that would no longer be possible and then I'd put him down.

I don't agree with your choice for your kitten though. My cat only took $600 to cure because he'd had it for about 2 months and it was so entrenched in his lungs and sinuses that he failed 3 antibiotics, so there was no choice but to megadose him IV style at the vets. Your kitten would have likely been cured by a $60 vet visit and $15 or so of antibiotics. I guess I can't know that for sure but it seems to me like he would have been worth $75 or so. Especially since, once cured and barring anything else unexpected, you could have had 15 or so good years with him. That's what I mean in how much or how little you value something.

And believe it or not I do understand the "it's just a $5 fish" argument to a point. Seriously if it gets cancer or something, just get a new fish. I have fish too and I fully realize that while I like my fish and even have a favorite angelfish that I've had for 8 years or so and have gotten pretty attached to, I'm not as attached to my fish as I am to my cat. There are degrees of value, at least to me, I just personally see no reason for not knowing how to care for any living thing and having it pay the consequences in the end.

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Their dog is about 2 years old and the breed he is live to about 12 years (their side of the family have a lot of that breed and that's what they've said anyway) so they could have gotten 10 years more life out of him but they just can't afford, they've had fliers up advertising that he can have 10 years left if somebody is willing to pay for his surgery but nobody will come upto the offer because why would one do that when they can go to the shelter and choose a perfectly good dog for free?

I'm not sure exactly how long my kitten had had it for or anything but after having a long talk with the vet he said the best idea (because I was a student at the time I only had an after school job) was to put him down.

This is pretty much a case of what's done is done and we should be more concerned about finding a way to reverse the outcomes, there's no point in arguing wether he treated it correctly or incorrectly because whilse we're arguing we could be searching for something to help his fish.