Beta wants to commit suicide

Seems, my beta wants to commit suicide. Last few months he's been sitting
on the bottom of the tank a lot, his belly swelled a bit, externally I don't
see any thing wrong with him, fins, skin looks healthy.
Other fish are doing fine too.
Lately he goes out of the water on top of a artificial Lilly pad floater and
just lays there. Few time pushed him back in a water, but he goes back all
the time.
Is this a tempt for suicide of what, strange behavior?
Julius

Have you tried taking the lily pad out of his tank? You might want to
try that if you are confident he won't get desperate enough to jump out
of the tank unsupervised. With myself I have learned a long time ago
that fancy guppies are not very long living and that I would lose one
once in a while from something I can't see or yet understand but my
fancy guppies are still thriving mostly because of the reproduction
they do and I have to haul bags of tank water containing a ton of fancy
guppies to the lfs relatively often. Some of my fancy guppies (for some
reason almost entirely females) would end up on top of my floating baby
grass (plastic) and die there seemingly from suffocation. My solution
was to weigh the plastic baby grass down on the tank gravel. There
still are occasional mystery deaths though. Good luck - later!

Seems he's not getting air that's why he's coming out of the water.
May be lung problem? Beta can take oxygen from the air.
Julius

wrote in message
ups.com...
Have you tried taking the lily pad out of his tank? You might want to
try that if you are confident he won't get desperate enough to jump out
of the tank unsupervised. With myself I have learned a long time ago
that fancy guppies are not very long living and that I would lose one
once in a while from something I can't see or yet understand but my
fancy guppies are still thriving mostly because of the reproduction
they do and I have to haul bags of tank water containing a ton of fancy
guppies to the lfs relatively often. Some of my fancy guppies (for some
reason almost entirely females) would end up on top of my floating baby
grass (plastic) and die there seemingly from suffocation. My solution
was to weigh the plastic baby grass down on the tank gravel. There
still are occasional mystery deaths though. Good luck - later!

Sounds like you need to check water quality. It's possible he's just
trying to get out of the water because the water is bad. Try some water
changes and see what happens. If that doesn't help try calling your
local water treatment plant and ask what the water characteristics are
for your tap water if you use tapwater, or buy a cheap test kit
(approximately $15-16.00 dollars over the net in some places and
similar in some lfss) to get an idea of what the betta's water is like.
If I remember right betta's like soft water slightly acidic around 6.9
ph, no ammonia, no chloramines, no nitrites, and low nitrates, these
parameters are almost certainly important even though bettas can
breathe atmospheric air. Good luck and later!

wrote in message
oups.com...
Sounds like you need to check water quality. It's possible he's just
trying to get out of the water because the water is bad. Try some water
changes and see what happens. If that doesn't help try calling your
local water treatment plant and ask what the water characteristics are
for your tap water if you use tapwater, or buy a cheap test kit
(approximately $15-16.00 dollars over the net in some places and
similar in some lfss) to get an idea of what the betta's water is like.
If I remember right betta's like soft water slightly acidic around 6.9
ph, no ammonia, no chloramines, no nitrites, and low nitrates, these
parameters are almost certainly important even though bettas can
breathe atmospheric air. Good luck and later!

Thanks!
JS