I cleaned out my beta's bowl this morning. About an hour later, my mother in law noticed there was no fish in the bowl. We freaked. We thought our cats had finally after all this time decided to have a morning snack. But no, we found him on the counter, behind his bowl. We thought he was dead, but he was still moving just ever so slighly. We put him back in his bowl and he as has been acting odd since. He will float up and down like vertical and he is now on the bottom of his bowl. He is moving on occasion. Is he about to die because he was out of his bowl for too long or is he (hopeing) starting to recoup?
I would be awful sad if "pudge" died.
Answers:
betta's can survive out of their bowl for quite some time, as long as they don't completely dry out...when i worked at petsmart, a white one jumped out of his cup and when i found him i thought he was dead...i put him in some water, and he came around and acted the same as you are describing for a week...i ended up taking him home, and had him for a year.give him a little time, and he should be ok
We had a beta fish that had the same habit of jumping out of his dish. We had to get a lid that had holes in it so that he wouldn't jump out any more. Ours did the same thing...acting like he was going to die... but his body was just in shock and it took a little time for it to wear off.
Beta fish are pretty resiliant, and hopefully Pudge will be able to snap out of it also.
He may recover just fine. Even fish who breathe through gills can revive well after such an ordeal. Betas are jumpers, so I suggest keeping them in a real tank. Betas tend to get sick constantly when kept in the little bowls and tiny tanks. The go from fungal diseases to bacterial diseases and so on because they have virtually no immune system. They strain so much to stay alive in the conditions of bowls. Any little stressor (like having been out of the water) will cause a chain reaction of illnesses so keep a close eye on the fish and consider a cycled aquarium for him.
maybe cause there recovering from shock maybe stress
He's very stressed out from the jump, but chances are, if you make efforts to keep as little stress on him as possible, he will recover in time.
How large is his bowl? You might want to get him in a larger, heated tank. If your bowl is just a gallon, you'll need to be changing the water every 3 days, which will be pretty stressful for him. Yet you also don't want to skip out on water changes, because having to swim in his own waste will be even worse. So a larger tank is probably the best solution; he won't be swimming in his own toilet, and he won't have to undergo water changes so often. Less stress for your betta (and less work for you!).
It's also a good idea to get him a heater; cold or fluctuating water temperatures stress a betta out like crazy.
You might also want to avoid flaring him for a couple of days. Don't put him near any mirrors, or any other bettas, for awhile. If he's the excitable sort, you can wrap a towel around his bowl (make sure there's a gap at the top so he can breathe.) The darkness will encourage him to rest.
