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Betta is sick, but with what??

23 13:57:44

Question
I'm really worried about my betta fish WALL-E. I just got him 2 weeks ago. After a week or so, he started spending most of his time in corners, at the bottom in the rocks, or at the top of the tank just standing still. His gills don't move as much as when I got him either. When he does swim, he's quite jittery. He's slow reacting to outside stimulus too. He does, but his fins don't flare as much as they used to. I've been checking him carefully for rashes/itch/etc etc and have found nothing. Well, not nothing recently i've noticed an EXTREMELY small amount of white between his gills, but it doesn't look like itch and it doesn't look big enough to be a parasite, plus I don't know where he's get a parasite from. He's the only fish in the tank. I've been keeping an eye on it and thinking maybe he's just getting used to the new tank, but now I'm really worried because I tried to feed him today and he wouldn't eat. Usually he devours the stuff and today he spit it out and let it all sink. I'm really worried about WALL-E and I don't want him to die! Do you have any clue as to what this could be and how to treat it? :( Thank you in advance.

Answer
Hi Kelly,
 Normally a betta shouldn't be very active and his gills shouldn't be moving much so up until the part where you said he wasn't eating, I would have said he was perfectly normal.

  Have you changed some of his water?  You need to do a partial water change once a week and change about 25% of the water at that time.

-- Ron
  rcoleman@cichlidresearch.com
  Cichlid Research Home Page <http://cichlidresearch.com>