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I have a Betta who is not doing well tonight. He normally is swimming from side to side in a 5 gallon aquarium. Tonight he is listless and staying at the bottom and sometimes is curling over on the rocks. The parameters are: Ammonia .025, Nitrate .1 and PH 7.6. I added PH Neg to bring the PH down and also added some aquarium salt. He is still staying in the back of the aquarium and at the bottom. I don't know what else to do. Can someone help me, I don't want to loose him. Thanks.

sorry I dont know a lot about bettas. there should not be any ammonia or nitrite readings at all.
For the moment I reccomend doing a 15% water change and put in some ammonia neutrilzer.
This will only get you out of trouble for a little while and best not to use it regualy

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TONY
Australian and proud of it!!
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I take it this is either a very new tank or that you dont do weekly water changes?

Your fish is dying of nitrite poisoning and there are 2 things you can do.

1-add salt 1/2-1 tsp per gallon... you said you already did this. Hopefully you didnt add either regular table salt, or more then 1 tsp per gallon, but this will help negate the effects of the nitrite in the blood stream.

2-This is actually the most important. You need to change out 100% of the water though not right away, you should do it in 20% chagnes every day for a week this will get rid of all the impurities in the water...If you do too much too fast you will kill him just as fast as if you leave him in the water just like it is. At that point do 25-30% changes every week to keep all the levels down.

Hope that helps and that your fish pulls through let us know how it goes for you.

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Adam

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Adam@cichlidfish.com
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Yes, the tank is fairly new (about 3 1/2 weeks old) (I am a new aquarium owner and didn't know I needed to season the tank first and no one told me at the store). I have been doing about 30-40% water changes every week with the conditioned water. Last night I raised the temperature up to 82 degrees (was at 74 degrees), changed 1 1/2 gallons of water. Earlier I had added 1 teaspoon of aquarium salt per gallon (Tank is a 5 gallon). He will only eat blood worms so far and has refused everything else. I just ordered some special food for him from Aquadine but it hasn't arrived yet. This morning when I turned the lights on he did start swimming around. I was reading some information on some websites and noticed that you are only supposed to have about 1/4 of gravel. Is this true? When I do water changes I stir the large pebbles (about 1/2 inch in diameter and not the small gravel)to get the debris that is down inbetween them. I was thinking last night that maybe I should remove some to bring the level down lower. (I haven't found a reason why 1/4 inch is recommended but "assume" that food caught down in there would effect the nitrogen cycle and raise the nitrate readings.)This morning the nitrite reading is less than .1. My kit only shows .1 as the first reading and the test tube is far fainter than the first color but is slightly colored.
I figured I would change about 25% of the water today and remove about half of the pebbles.
My Betta was swimming when I first turned the lights on but moved back down to the bottom of the tank as before and arched over a rock. Another thing is I cleaned the filter 2 days ago. It is a Whisper and I rinsed and brushed it and put a new filter in because I noticed the water flow at the surface had slowed down. There is no way to slow it down but he doesn't like the increase water flow at the surface. Should I put more aquarium salt in?

You can have more then 1/4" of gravel if you want, but you should try and vacuum the bottom to get all the gunk out of it. It might be a good idea to take some of the gravel out if it is making tank maintenance difficult. Only add as much salt as you took out in a water change... salt doesnt evaporate and will stay in the water until you remove it with water changes. Just keep up with the water changes and make sure not to over feed, bettas dont need to eat that much and a very small portion of blood worms once or twice a day is fine... any more and you are probably over feeding which would lead to the high levels in the water. Cut back on your feedings and change more water and you should be fine.

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Adam

Come see my website!
Adam@cichlidfish.com
Got ?'s about HITH? Read this to learn more!

Thanks for the help. Jesse B. is doing much better today but is still not swimming back and forth in the front of the tank. I tend to think that is because of the strength of the filter water flow. He is not going down to the bottom of the tank anymore and curling over the rocks so I believe he is recovering. He ate well both in the AM and PM. As for the food he eats maybe 3 or 4 bites of blood worms and what he doesn't take his buddies, the Dainos scarf up very quickly.