Betta bloated - whats wrong?

Question
Hi there. We have 3 bettas (1 male, 2 females) in a 100 litre tank, along with several other fish: neons, a ghost knife, a catfish, 2 guramis, 2 clown loaches and 3 guppies. We bought the bettas along with tank about 4 months ago, and so I'm not sure how old they are exactly. We're using spring water and the temp. is just under 80oF.

The two females have had bloated stomachs for about 3 weeks now, they hardly move around and are always sitting on structures in our tank such as the filter/logs and one is gulping air from the surface. We thought it was constipation at first and so separated them, fasted them for 2 days and then gave them a cooked pea (which we think they ate). They were still bloating several days later however, and so we added some epsom salt into the big tank (1 tsp/5 gallons) - we did this 24 hrs ago and it hasn't helped either.

How long would epsom salt normally take to work? Should we repeat the dosage? Does this sound like it could be dropsy and if so can it spread to our other fish? The male betta appears fine right now and all the other fish are healthy. The skin under the female bettas mouths also appears white, as if their scales have fallen off..

Thanks a lot

Answer
Hi Ellie;

It's possible they are constipated or have dropsy. Or, they may be full of eggs. If they seem weak they should not breed though. Breeding is stressful enough for a healthy fish. Don't feed them at all for 3 or 4 days and see how they do. They should "re-absorb" the eggs if that's what's going on. Try feeding them just a tiny bit of peas after the 3 or 4 days. Maintain their tank temperature at 80 degrees. Bettas need their water very warm when they are sick. Keep epsom salts in there too just in case it's constipation instead.

Here are some web pages about these conditions too;

http://groups.msn.com/TheBettaObsession/constipation.msnw
http://www.healthybetta.com/articles/Illness%20Diagonsis/constipation.html
http://www.healthybetta.com/articles/Illness%20Diagonsis/dropsy.html
http://badmanstropicalfish.com/articles/article24.html

I hope they feel better soon....

At Your Service;
Chris Robbins