Close Menu
Betta Fish

Betta Fish: Rescued severely stressed female bettas – looking for rehabilitation advice

Visited a local fish farm yesterday and saw several female bettas in very poor condition (in cups, almost no water left, many lethargic, clamped fins and some mortality in nearby cups). I brought 2 of them home to try and rehabilitate them.
Right now they’re in a my aquarium (26–27°C) with dechlorinated water with tannins from Indian almond leaves. I’m feeding a bit of blood worms and grindal worms few times a day and monitoring closely.
Given that they were likely exposed to prolonged stress and possibly poor water quality before, what would you recommend as the best recovery protocol?
I’d really appreciate input from experienced betta keepers. My goal is just to stabilize and get them healthy long term.

https://www.reddit.com/gallery/1rcl6rt

Posted by Icy_Support7087

5 Comments

  1. Foreign-Ad3926 on

    Hi OP, super pristine water free from ammonia, nitrite and keep nitrates below 20ppm will help them. Are they in separate tanks? They shouldn’t be housed together as this is an extra stress.

  2. LazRboy on

    I am not a big fan of this saving strategy. You need 2 clean, pre-cycled and healthy, established tanks to do “saving” here.

  3. stealthtomyself on

    Oh my god is there any way to report this place for abuse? I mean look at them they’re dying they’re drying out.

  4. CorgisAndFoxes on

    Hi OP- how big is the tank and are they together? I think this calls for a small hospital tank situation since they look so sick that theyd struggle to get air. And is your aquarium already cycled? I can imagine putting them thru a fish-in cycle while so sick might push them over the edge 🙁

  5. SingularRoozilla on

    You’re doing good so far! Monitor the water quality and make sure that ammonia and nitrites are at 0ppm, and nitrates are under 20ppm. If you don’t have a way of doing this then change out 20-30% of the tank’s water every day. They will need separate tanks for sure but if you can put a divider down the one you have that’ll be a good solution until you can establish a 2nd tank. You don’t mention the size of the tank that they’re in, and honestly anything is better than what you found them in, but eventually they’ll both need a 5 or 10 gallon tank.

Leave A Reply