# New betta dies after 5 days, signs of dropsy only after death.



## Fishnoob78 (Oct 30, 2005)

Well this is the first fish I have ever had that died not to long after bringing it home. 

I bought a female betta last thursday, I put her in a 5 gallon, heater, air stone, 75% water change every other day. 

She only ate twice at first, she really showed no interest in food. Each day she moved less, spent most of her time at the bottom. Yesterday, tuesday, she would let herself drop like a stone after going to the surface for air, crashing into whatever on the way down. Last night I noticed her resting on her side a little, same with this morning.

I had a bad feeling last night that she was not going to make it. At 8:30 this morning she was alive, when I returned home around 10 am she was gone. But, and this is what is confusing me, her scales are raised and there is some bloating as if she has dropsy, she showed no signs of this when she was alive. I really don't see how I could of not noticed her raised scales. I always thought she looked a little swollen a day or two after I had her. 

Now I am wondering about this tank, my last betta in this very tank died from dropsy, well I euthanized him after he starting to suffer. I spent a week cleaning this tank out with bleach, then after that I rinsed it to many times to count. 

So now I don't know if something is up with this tank or she was sick when I bought her. I would say it was 3 days after I bought her that I noticed she spent alot of time sitting on the bottom. 

My other betta is in another 5 gallon besides this tank and he is fine.


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## Puffer Pita (Jun 16, 2006)

Hmm... I would suspect rather than dropsy after death, she was filling with gases from decomposing. 

You said you cleaned the tank with bleach but what about everything else? The heater, filter, gravel, anything else that had been used previously with the last sick fish. Is there anything you reused that didn't get completely sterilized?


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