Female Betta lost color and hitting against plants and walls

[BaRanchik]

Hey,

I just got that betta yesterday. I actually saw her a week before the purchase and she had a very dark blue color.
A week after, she was still very active, and she was doing great compared to other bettas on the show wall, so I picked her.
The moment the worker took her out she lost all color, I assume due to stress, which I guess is normal.

My tank is planted and I've made sure it's cycled. It has some hiding places so I was hoping she will color back up pretty fast.
She did get some color back but she gets stressed again every few minutes and goes back to her stress stripes coloration.
She's very active and was very curious, exploring her new tank when I put her in. Her only tank mates are 4 shrimp that were there from before, and 1 Otto I got along with her.

A few hours later, she began acting strange. She started hitting her side against the plants and walls. I waited overnight and she is still doing that so I decided to try and treat with Maracyn and I ordered Fritz ParaCleanse as well (sadly, this item is no where to be found here in Israel so I had to order it online, and it might take up to 2 weeks to get here). Hopefully this either passes by itself, or the Maracyn helps that.
I don't see any signs of Ich, or fungus so maybe it's something I'm not yet familiar with.

She is not used to feeding yet, but I did manage to get her to eat at least a bit of flake food.

Water parameters:

• pH - 7.2
• Nitrates - 20
• Hardness - says 400 mg/L on my test strips
• Nitrite - 0
• Ammonia - 0
• Water Temperature - 25C

Tank is a 10gal.

I wonder if anyone else has had a similar experience. What would you do next?

Edited May 8, 2021 by BaRanchik

[Colu]

Fish usually flash due to parasites poor water quality such as high levels of ammonia i would do I water change and treat with paracleanse when it gets he

[Hobbit]

Any updates on your betta? Perhaps she was just getting used to new water? I’m hoping she’s settled in and doing better now!

[BaRanchik]

3 hours ago, Hobbit said:

Any updates on your betta? Perhaps she was just getting used to new water? I’m hoping she’s settled in and doing better now!

She is still alive, and still no physical signs of any disease. I hope it won't be too late when I get the ParaCleanse.
She is still flashing but less frequently, and she is slowly regaining color, although it's far from her original color.
She is also getting stressed pretty easily, but she calms down quickly. She now eats almost comfortably when I feed her directly with my tweezers and she hides less.

So overall I think she'll be okay. My only fear is that she has a parasite and I will be too late to apply the medicine.

[CalmedByFish]

If you're not already, I'd suggest keeping the lights dim until she's acting healthy. It will help her feel like she's safely hidden, and being calm is a benefit to health. Sorry I don't have more ideas. 

She's a pretty little fish. 

[BaRanchik]

2 hours ago, CalmedByFish said:

If you're not already, I'd suggest keeping the lights dim until she's acting healthy. It will help her feel like she's safely hidden, and being calm is a benefit to health. Sorry I don't have more ideas. 

She's a pretty little fish. 

Thanks for the tip. I know the picture look as if I'm blasting the tank with light, but actually it's much dimmer, so I hope it's comfortable enough.

And yes, she is. Hopefully pretty soon I can update this post and show her true color. She's a beautiful Betta Mahachai - she was as colorful as a male the first time I saw her at the LFS, very dark overall, and covered with a lot of sparkling blue scales. I originally wanted to get the male that was presented next to her, but he developed ich by the time I could go back and get a fish, so I have decided to skip on him.

[CalmedByFish]

1 hour ago, BaRanchik said:

I originally wanted to get the male that was presented next to her, but he developed ich by the time I could go back and get a fish, so I have decided to skip on him.

Hmm. Were they sharing the same water, or just had tanks side-by-side? 

[BaRanchik]

12 minutes ago, CalmedByFish said:

Hmm. Were they sharing the same water, or just had tanks side-by-side? 

Side by side. They were on a Betta rack.