Betta male hugely swollen

He has been growing for about two weeks and I should have attended to this sooner. His face looks so tiny and he looks like he is about to blow up.

I have given him peas a couple of times to no avail and feed him quite sparingly.

Has anyone seen this? Is there anything I can do to help him?

More than likely he has bloat. It is caused by several differant things such as overfeed, bacterial infection, and water retention (sounds weird I know)
There are no know "cures" for bloat but several suggestions have helped individual fish.

Can you give me an idea of some of those suggestions? Are meds that can be used for bacterial infections in other fish not ok for bettas?

Any thoughts will be greatly appreciated.

Betta hugely swollen. Hmm...??? Examine the betta carefully if the belly is swollen or the whole body is swollen. If the belly is swollen and the fish is swimming on its side then it has a bloat. Treatment will be using some epsom salt. If the whole body is swollen and scales are popping out, then this is dropsy which is a bacterial disease. Treatment recommendation will be Melafix. You can buy this at Walmart or any pet store. Follow the recommendation on the bottle. Daily water changes of 20% will also help plus with the treatment. Even with these treatment, mortality is still high. Hope this helps.

My earlier post was somewhat inaccurate. (I shouldn't post when I am "dying" [aka sick with bronchial infection])
The Quote below is accurate.

Fish Heaven wrote:

Betta hugely swollen. Hmm...??? Examine the betta carefully if the belly is swollen or the whole body is swollen. If the belly is swollen and the fish is swimming on its side then it has a bloat. Treatment will be using some epsom salt. If the whole body is swollen and scales are popping out, then this is dropsy which is a bacterial disease. Treatment recommendation will be Melafix. You can buy this at Walmart or any pet store. Follow the recommendation on the bottle. Daily water changes of 20% will also help plus with the treatment. Even with these treatment, mortality is still high. Hope this helps.

Try to avoid Melafix if at all possible. It can be very toxic to Bettas. If you have to use it them use is sparingly. Try the peas thing with absolutely no food . Fast him for about a week ( male Bettas go a week or more without food when caring for there fry) then do the peas. For internal parasites use finely ground up garlic along with the garlic juice. For anything exterior use salt in the water. Good luck and keep that water clean.

He is uniformly swollen and his scales are stretched far out; I don't know if the scales are actually sticking out.

I will be fasting him for the next week and keeping the water very clean. I don't see anything on his surface.

Thanks for you folks' thoughts.

Ok sounds like Pine coning. Sorry. Not much can be done for that. That's usually fatal.

How long should I let him go on with this illness? He is enormous but swims around and wants to be able to bite at my finger.

What else are you going to do. Euthanasia? You don't have many options.

He seems to be feeling relatively decent - i.e., he's interactive and as usual loves attention, so I guess I'll fast him and keep his water very clean and let him continue until I feel he's suffering.