My bettas sickness

Question
We've had Fishy for about 3 months. The tank is no bigger than the size of a miniature dictionary. He is a betta. We made a mistake of not changing the water very much when we got him, so now he is very ill. We have started changing the water everyday and treating him with Maracyn. He has popeye, and his color is fading. It seemed that he was getting better, and now he is worse than ever. He stays at the bottom of his tank and can barely make it up to the top. He now seems to have what appears to be something white hanging from his eye (the one with popeye). He is very sick and has not eaten within the past day. Please help, he is young and we are willing to do anything we can to help him get better!

Answer
Hi Hossy;

Poor guy. Just keep up with the daily water changes and use "Maracyn Two". If what you have now is plain Maracyn it may not work as well. Maracyn Two gets inside the fish and the other treats only the outside of the fish. You can also use aquarium salt. It helps the fish with stress and helps inhibit infection.

The affected eye may have ruptured and that's what the white thing is. He will probably be permanently blind in that eye but fish can do very well with loss of part or even all of their vision. They can 'smell' their food to find it and detect where things are in the tank and since he is alone he won't have to compete for food with other fish.

It's okay that he isn't eating right now. Fish can go for two weeks or more without any food at all. His body needs to concentrate on healing instead of digesting right now. Keep him in as warm a place as possible to help his immunity and metabolism.

If he is having trouble swimming up he may have a swim bladder problem too. Here is a link to an article about it;

http://www.petfish.net/kb/entry/31/338/

I hope he feels better soon...

At Your Service;
Chris Robbins