I don't have a lot of hope for this poor fishy making it through the night unfortunately, but I'm trying to gain some insight into what happened in case I encounter something like this again.
I have a betta, named Teeth, who I was trying out housing in my 20 long community tank with sterbai corries and emerald eye rasboras. She's been living in there for maybe two months. She had definitely been snacking on the other fishes' food, which I was concerned about, but I hadn't noticed any weight gain or issues. I typically fast the tank once a week and also feed frozen foods at least once a week.
About a week ago, I fed the tank in the evening, including dropping some bottom feeder wafers for the corries, which Teeth does love to steal. The next morning, Teeth was very bloated from apparently gorging herself on cory food. This has happened before, but I've never seen her that bad. Her belly was very round and I noticed a slight pineconing of the scales on her underbelly.
Proceeded to begin several days of fasting the tank except for small amounts of frozen daphnia to try to help her system clear out. She did not improve, but was swimming and behaving normally, not showing any signs of lethargy. The pineconing increased, and by yesterday she was fully pineconed all over. I did an Epsom salt dip yesterday and saw no improvement.
Today I came home from work and found her lethargic at the bottom of the tank, barely able to move. Still bloated, still pineconed. Tried another Epsom dip. I've got her isolated in a breeder box in the tank for comfort. I have a hospital tank ready but I fear she's too far gone for meds 😞
What happened here? Obviously it looks like a case of dropsy but there was such an obvious connection with her overeating the cory pellets. Can gastrointestinal distress lead to dropsy? Is there anything I should try to do for this fish at this point?
Thanks, I appreciate y'all ❤️