# Betta with swollen belly



## sweston (Jan 10, 2009)

My female betta has a habit of eating the big sinking shrimp pellets that I feed to my cory catfish, and now her belly has swollen up terribly. I've tried starvation days, and I'm going to see if she'll eat shelled peas, which apparently will help if the problem is just constipation. But her stomach is so big that I'm starting to think it could be something else.

The betta I had before her, a male who also liked to steal those shrimp pellets, died around a month after his stomach started swelling up in the same way. For most of this time he acted normally, like my female now is, and only acted really sick during his last few days.

Do I just need to find a way to get her to stop eating the pellets, or do you think there is a more serious problem with my betta or my tank?









I checked her from the top and the scales aren't sticking out like they would if it were dropsy.


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## mistergreen (Dec 9, 2006)

she's pretty.

I've had a few died from swollen stomachs too. Hopefully she's just laden of eggs and will drop them. Try frozen bloodworms to clear any constipation too.


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## sweston (Jan 10, 2009)

She died a few days ago... like my old betta, she became lethargic and drifted around at the bottom for a day or so. I guess my tank just isn't a good fit for bettas...

Poor girl! I thought she was pretty too, mistergreen.


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## BottomFeeder (Jul 26, 2008)

How big is the tank, how often do you do water changes, and how much do you change? Is the tank cycled?

Seems strange that they should keep dying after about a month. Not sure if it is water conditions, or maybe something in the tank that leads to dropsy.


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## mistergreen (Dec 9, 2006)

I don't think it's dropsy. Looks like bad constipation. Notice how the eyes and other body parts are not swollen.

sometimes when bettas eat a massive amount of dry food, they'll get this way.


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## BottomFeeder (Jul 26, 2008)

I've always been bad at diagnosing it. I had a tiger barb the other day that was looking sketchy, but it seemed to have passed its blockage and is looking much better today.


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## Hilde (May 19, 2008)

Well seems the best thing to do, if you want another Betta, is change the food to something they can all eat. 

You know that action reminds me of when I had a Parakeet and Cockatoo bird. The parakeets always got into the Cockatoos food, thus I stopped buying parakeet food. They just got to have what the other has, like children.


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