Betta fish sitting at the bottom of tank opening and closing mouth

[RyanU]

Help please. My new betta is sitting at the bottom of the tank opening and closing is mouth. I started another thread a few days ago "new betta not eating" about him not eating since I brought him home Saturday. Last night I started a general treatment for everything with tetra lifeguard. Only general meds at pet store. So you think it's something else or just really sick and need to let the meds work.

[Cys aquatics]

it most likely is that he is just sick, since Bettas go to the surface to breathe with their mouth so it is unlikely that they would breathe in the bottom.

Hope this helps.

[RyanU]

It does help. I'm hopefull the meds will work in a couple days

[Dancing Matt]

Question, does he have any sign of sickness or just lethargy? Bettas have gills so they can still extract oxygen from water but they also breathe from the surface. Another is, are your parameters stable? fluctuating parameters can cause stress, maybe check the temperature of the tank at night to make sure they are not dropping.

[RyanU]

@Dancing Matt Temp is stable at 79. Water parameters look good. I made a DIY sponge filter to reduce the flow. He seems to be moving around the tank more. He doesn't seem to be interested in food which is a concern and why I think there is something wrong. Also he has fin damage in the back and I belive belias possibly clamped fin or the start of fun rot. When he raises good to fin it stays bunched together like in the picture

[laritheloud]

15 minutes ago, RyanU said:

@Dancing Matt Temp is stable at 79. Water parameters look good. I made a DIY sponge filter to reduce the flow. He seems to be moving around the tank more. He doesn't seem to be interested in food which is a concern and why I think there is something wrong. Also he has fin damage in the back and I belive belias possibly clamped fin or the start of fun rot. When he raises good to fin it stays bunched together like in the picture

Your water looks cloudy. Do you have a reading of ammonia, nitrite, nitrate? I know you said your water parameters look good but any info helps.

[RyanU]

Yea sorry. I just checked. Ammonia is 0 nitrite if 0 and nitrates are between 5 and 10. I herbs been watching them like a hawk because I read these meds can like your BB. I assumed the water was cloudy from the meds and from the food I am leaving in the the tank to try and get him to eat. He hasn't s eaten since I brought him home Saturday

[Dancing Matt]

Are you dosing the tank with ferts? It is hard to tell with the picture (I'm assuming the cloudy is the glass and not the water) but that back string reminds me of when my betta got fin rot. I noticed my betta didn't seem to like me dosing fertilizers and got fin rot a day or two after. Not necessarily the fertilizer, could have been him not liking the nitrates. 

Silly question maybe but are you dechlorinating your tap water and changing with approximately same temp water (or small amounts)?

You may want to stop feeding but if you are that worried drop a single piece of a bug bite and see what happens. If he is not interested, I wouldn't leave it in.

[RyanU]

The only thing I am using is Root Tabs for the plants. Those were cut offs from my other tank. They were kind of floating and the roots got really long. I think the cloudy was from the meds and food. I did a 2 gallon water change this morning and sucked as much of the food as I could out and the cloudy went away. The fins looked like that when we brought him home. And yes I am using Prime for dechlorinater and also Ammonia prevention as I read some reviews that said the Meds killed their BB. I checked it this morning and it looked yellowish. I will check again tonight and make sure it was just from the food and not from the meds.