Home Remedies for a Sick Betta Fish

Several days ago, my daughter's betta fish began blowing up. I mean like a pufferfish or something.

Of course, being the internet savvy mom that I am I googled betta fish sickness. It appears that maybe my fish suffers from dropsy. It said that this condition is almost always fatal.

I think it was my fault. Wait! I'm not an intentional fish killer! It was more like fish-slaughter.

I reguarly clean the fish bowl. I try to make sure the water temperature is about the same. But, I usually get the water for the fish before it goes through the water softener, but out of laziness I just got it out of the tap several times.

Still don't understand my case?

Let me explain. I found out the importance of good, clean, well water in our quest to overcome our environmental illnesses. I discovered that the water softener does more than take the orange iron out of water so you can actually do your laundry at home. It takes most all the minerals out of your water. Minerals are essential for health. We were mineral deficient. Then to top it off, after going through a water softener, your water is high in salt, and salt contains aluminum.

So now we get our drinking/cooking water from a valve before it goes through the water softener. Another thing I did was to read the owner's manual. I set the softener on the absolute lowest setting possible. It still works effectively on our laundry - no visible orange spots. A bag of salt now lasts us several months.

Anyway, I've been expecting poor little fishy to expire any time, but it's still swimming away. I've been giving it several drops of colodial silver a day and it seems to help it some. I've thought about tea tree oil.

Does anyone have any ideas for this poor unfortunate fellow that's appears as though he'll suffer an untimely death?