Betta fish and SBD?

Question
QUESTION: Hi I have a male betta fish approx. 1 year old. I bought him in May, he lives in a 2.5 g tank with a filter and 2 live plants. His temp. stays around 80-82 degrees, his water reads 0 nitrites and ammonia, almost 0 nitrates, and pH around 6.6 to 6.8. I change his water at least once a week, vacuuming quite often. The vacuuming sucks alot of water so I end up changing between 25-50% of his water each time. He has never had fin rot or any other disorder/disease. He has an excellent appetite and always responds to my family and me. My problem- about a week/week and a half ago I noticed he was sinking instead of his usual floating around. His back end would sink like an anchor so I searched the internet for info. Due to a major change in my daily schedule thanks to a new job, I immediately adjusted his food. I went from a few HIkari micro pellets once or twice daily (I was overfeeding him so I cut back) to once a day and added freeze-dried bloodworms as a treat for the change. Thinking Bluebird (my betta) looked constipated, I considered SBD as the problem due to his diet. So, first I tried the peeled green pea. He loved it and pooped it no problem. But he was still sinking so I fasted him for about 3 days in which he did NOT defecate at all. So, yesterday I tried the pea again and today he defecated. But he still sinks! I also considered a bacterial infection. I dont know how he could have gotten one but I guess it doesnt matter. I also cant tell if he has slight popeye (another sign of bacterial infection). From the few photos I could find of popeye, it doesnt look look the same. So I dont know if Im just paranoid or his eyes really look different. The sockets around his eyes look like they protrude but the clear cornea (?) does not 'pop' at all. Please help! I love him very much and hate to see him struggle to stay afloat or have popeye. Any suggestions would be great. Also, do you happen to know of a website that has clear and detailed photos of these disorders so I can more accurately compare? I want to treat him but I dont want to give unnecessary treatment if im wrong. Thank you!!!

ANSWER: Hi Katie
Does his body/abdomen look swollen?  
Is he struggling to swim towards the top?
Or, does he swim fine after leaving the bottom?

I had a really really good site with great pictures of all kinds of diseases and such, but it hasn't been working for awhile now.  The only other site I have that shows photos is this one, but it's not the greatest photo, kinda hard to tell.  I'll do some more searching though, but usually most photos will show the end result or worst case scenario photos:

http://www.fishdeals.com/fish_diseases/pop_eye/

So I'd just keep an eye on it.  Actually popeye can be caused from a variety of things, like everything else that goes wrong with fish....but usually it's associated with dropsy and/or poor water quality-which doesn't sound like the case with you.  

Let me know on those above questions.  But it could be a swim bladder problem.  Start soaking the freeze dried food and his pellets in a small bowl of tank water before feeding him.  Go ahead and keep up with the pea once or twice a week.  Just rotate between the 3 different foods.  Once a day is fine.  For your water changes, are you using the smaller/thinner type of gravel vacuum?  I clean my 10 gallon tanks with a manual gravel vac, and found the larger vacuums really sucked the water out a lot quicker then I wanted.  I bought one of the smaller sized ones, like i said, it's just thinner, and now it seems to take forever to fill the bucket up, but more control over how much water is being taken out.  Also, I'm sure you know, be sure the added water is very close to the tank temperature.  Rapid fluctuations in temps can stress the fish and lead to other problems.

Christy

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Hi Christy! Thank you for your help... to answer your questions: his body looks totally normal but his stomach looked a little swollen. He defecated twice today (from the peas) and now his stomach appears much better. But he still drops his back end. He is able to swim to the top to breathe and eat but I worry it wears him out. I see him struggle to stay bouyant but again, he appears happy and still loves to eat. I appreciate the website- but like you said the pictures are not too clear. It is only the eye socket or area surrounging his eye that appears different/bulging. IF he has popeye, what should I do? Does this sound like a possible bacterial infection? If so, what medication should I use? I feel awful! I have worked so hard to watch his water so I dont know what happened! Thank you again for all your help!!! Katie

Answer
Hi Katie
Well, this is a strange one.  Usually you can attribute those problems(swim bladder and popeye) to poor water quality and/or a bacterial infection.  However, that doesn't seem to be the case with your little guy.

It could just be a genetic thing going on.  He is still a bit young, usually the life span-and there are exceptions, for store bought bettas is about 2-3 years average.  Bettas bought from breeders, so I've heard are better quality, and live longer.  Again, there's exceptions to that I'm sure.  If you bought yours from a store, he was most likely already about 9-12 months old.  From what I've read on them, that's about the time they get into their full colors(I am not a betta expert, this is all stuff I've read, just to clarify lol).  I don't know if you took that info into account when figuring how old he was?

Now, did this happen to start right after using the blood worms?  I've also been reading a bit lately on bloodworms possible containing bacteria or parasites.  I know live bloodworms aren't necessarily good, and can spred those, possibly frozen, and I don't recall if freeze dried was included in that.  I do remember reading that with freeze dried foods and frozen foods, you should soak them first in some tank water.  I believe that's so it doesn't expand in the fish, if that makes any sense.  

Stop feeding the bloodworms for now, especially if it started right after you started feeding that.  I would suggest feeding an antibacterial food for now and see if that helps.  Jungle Labs makes a food now.  Think there's a few others out there.  That's the best way to get the meds inside the fish.  They're a pellet food, and probably a bit larger then what he's used to eating, so you can smash it or crumble it into smaller pieces.  If he was a little bigger in the abdomen area, and it went down after he defacated, then he very well could've been constipated.  Maybe the swim bladder issue will go away soon if that was the cause.  Keep doing the water changes and keep the water quality good.  Also, lower his water level down a bit in the tank, that'll help him and he won't have to struggle as much to get to the top.  For now, keep an eye on his eye....if it's bacterial, that food will help with that.  

Sorry not much more help, let me know if he gets better, or worse.  Good luck!

Christy