BETA-not doing so well

Question
Hi There,
I just received a wonderful new addition to our family for Christmas, Dudley our beta fish; so we've had him for a week and he's already not doing so well. When we got him, he was in a tiny little tank no bigger than a large glass of water. We've moved him into a 2 gallon tank with a filter and I have to say that after about 10 minutes he took to the space and was much happier. We've been feeding him about 3 pelettes of his food (Wardley Essentials Betta Premium Food)every day, and we've also put this Aqua Plus tap water conditioner in with the water. Like I said, we've had him for a week so we haven't even cleaned his tank yet. The tank itself has a couple of plastic plants, and a rock type statue that's hollow so Dudley can swim through it. He usually does his routine of swimming from top to bottom, and zig zagging all around.

Today when I got home from work he was swimming around the top of his tank which so far I haven't seen him do. When I went to feed him and take a closer look, I noticed he was trying to swim down but couldn't. After some trying he was able to make it down to the bottom of the tank but he would then simply float back up; he even tried going into his rocks but he floated out the holes in the top. I've been watching him much closer now, and it doesn't seem like it's his fins; both sides seem to be moving fine. For now though, I've moved him back into the smaller tank so that he doesn't exhaust himself trying to swim up and down but I'm just not sure what to do to help. I really don't want to lose our new friend but with little experience I'm not sure what can be done. I've already looked around online and found that betas like warmer water and a good way to do that is by using a desk lamp to heat it. I Put a lamp by his smaller tank, but it just seems so bright. I also read that it could be something to do with his bladder or swimbladder, or even possibly constipation and pees can help; but I'm afraid to try something and have it be wrong.

Please help my little Dudley. Thanks for your time. Lily

Answer
Good evening Lily, thank you for your question.

I hate to say this but, toss that Wardley stuff in the trash and get yourself a decent pellet food! You will find that most serious hobbyists are disdainful of Wardley's products. Before I knew better, I bought shrimp pellets for my community tank, and if my cory cats weren't hooked on these "pork rinds" of the fish food world, I would toss that can in the trash as well. My beefs with Wardley's products are the fact that they use inferior binding agents and fillers instead of quality ingredients, their food rots quickly and their flakes are prone to causing bloat. Try switching to the betta pellets manufactured by Hikari.

Read further here:
http://www.bettatalk.com/food.htm

While 3 pellets twice a day should not be a problem, I suspect the food has made him bloated and he will need some treatment. Please do remove him from the cup and transfer him back to the proper tank you were good enough to get him!  If necessary, you can lower the water level a little, but that cup really is not an appropriate hospital tank.

Instead, feed him a shelled pea - meaning, a defrosted or canned pea innard. Make sure it is unsalted. Simply squeeze out the pea and feed it to your betta. Also, add 1/4 tsp of Epsom salt to his little tank and perform a water change. This should help him recover and lighten him up.

A 25% water change is what I usually recommend, unless there is an emergency. You will want to avail yourself of some test kits in the future, the liquid kind are by far the most reliable. The instructions will show you how to read them, what you want to see is 0 ppm of nitrite and ammonia, and 20 ppm or less of nitrate, preferably less.

Basically, when your tank is cycled, the ammonia (raw waste) that your betta produces is converted to nitrite (which is toxic but not as deadly) and converted to nitrate, which is much safer than nitrite. Your 2 gallon bowl may not have entirely cycled, but ammonia is building up much more quickly in the little cup, which is why you must move him.

A 25W heater is going to be a necessity, really, since it is not going to be practical to heat his tank with a lamp. In fact, it will save you power to use a heater instead of a lamp for this purpose. Besides, when the lamp is off at bed time, he's likely freezing his little betta buns off! A temperature of 78-80 degrees is ideal, and it should be constant, without any night time fluctuations. Human and betta immune systems both are compromised by being cold.

Do read this section on caring for a betta, which includes a section on water changes and conditioning:

http://www.bettatalk.com/betta_care.htm

See if you can provide this for your pal Dudley, and he should be a happy little guy again in no time!

Take care and feel free to write again,
Nicole