Updates on Squirt!

Squirt has now been with me for nearly a week. He seems to be quite happy. He is still very active swimming all around his tank. He is much more curious about me than Squirt the first. Squirt loves to swim right up to me when he sees me in front of the tank and when I walk past his tank he often follows me.


 He was scared of me for the first day, but now that I have fed him a few times he likes me quite a bit. He is quite athletic and loves to chase bubbles, attack the filter intake tube, and chase after his food. He also seems to like inspecting all of his gravel. He takes time each day to swim around and stare at the rocks. He also loves swimming through his cave and hanging out in the plants. He has also made his first bubble nest, and even spent a while guarding it. 


He does have slightly clamped fins, but they seem to be improving. I also noticed when I got him that he either has larger eyes than most bettas or popeye, which is a bacteria infection causing the infected fish's eyes to swell and if left untreated the eye could potentially burst and the fish could die.


 I am not sure if he really does have popeye, because his eyes aren't getting any bigger, and generally with popeye one eye would be bigger than the other and his are the same size. However, it is always better safe than sorry and since popeye is potentially fatal, I have medication that I am giving him that will deal with the popeye and should help with his clamped fins. 


He seems to be a very resilient fish. He did have one night where he was getting lethargic and lost a lot of his color, but by morning he was his usual bright red and back to be his usual active self and since then he has been doing very well. Hopefully his fins will get unclamped and he will be all healthy. 


I also noticed that he has signs of previously having fin rot or fin damage. Basically some of the ends of his fins are clear instead of red like they should be. The clear fins are basically new fin growth, which is a good sign and means he healed from the fin rot/ damage. They will eventually get red like the rest of him, but that takes a while. Since he healed from his previous fin damage, I am hoping he will be able to get over his clamped fins and possible popeye soon.