I'm pretty embarrassed to write this but two days ago, after I changed my betas (Joey's) water, he jumped out while in the process of transferring him back into his clean bowl and landed in my sink . To make the situation worse, my faucet was running water that was a little bit too warm (not piping hot but too warm for a fish to be in). Anyway, I freaked out and tried to scoop him out as fast I could so I could put him back into his tank. After I did that, I noticed he swam around the bowl in circles a few times really fast. I felt so bad, I tried putting some fish food in the bowl but he wanted nothing to do with it. After a apologizing to him a million times, I came back a few hours later and noticed that he still didn't eat anything. The next day (yesterday morning) before I Ieft for work, I went over to see him and found him in a slanted vertical position, with his head facing downward at the bottom of the bowl, still breathing. I had never seen him in that position before. All I did at that time was hope that he would get through the traumatic incident he had gone through. Later that night (last night), after I got back from work, I came back to check on him and this time noticed he was in a complete vertical position (head still facing down at the bottom of the bowl). Literally my stomach turned upside down. I looked so hard trying to see if could notice any signs of breathing but there was nothing!!! That's when I realized he was dead. The poor thing had suffered so much that it was too much to recover from it. I felt horrible, I still do. After a while of starring and apologizing to him, I just left him because I couldn't bare to see him like that especially knowing that I was the cause of this. However this morning, I somehow got the courage and flushed him down the toilet. I'm pretty bummed about it. I never thought I would have gotten so attached to a fish but I did.

Anyway, in this case, does the slanted position mean anything specifically? I know its definitely from the incident but I am curious to know why he was slanted with his head facing the bottom of the bowl. Was he suffering? Did he go into shock? Has anyone heard of anything like this before? I've only had him for 7 months. He was healthy, fun and full of energy. I still can't believe I did this to him. I would love to hear if any one has any insight to this.