Jumping in with a 5.5 gallon... advice needed on fish!

[dkpate]

LOL! You are right, bettas all have different personalities! I really need to get a video of mine when they know they are going to be fed, they look like they are having seizures...And they will jump out of the water, and one bites on to my finger until he finds the pellet LOL. I love them.

 

[sieski]

LOL! You are right, bettas all have different personalities! I really need to get a video of mine when they know they are going to be fed, they look like they are having seizures...And they will jump out of the water, and one bites on to my finger until he finds the pellet LOL. I love them.

I had a seizure when my last betta decided to kill 4 fish and carry on trying. I have never netted bagged and shot off to a shop so quick! lol

 

[dkpate]

What did you do with him?

 

[sieski]

What did you do with him?

I said a shop lol.I got full cash refund.Was withinh 24 hours of buying him. A month later I saw this one and he was in a tank at the lfs with same fish as I had so thought he might be a bit more tolerant lol and he is.

Isn't it like 3am there now????

 

[dkpate]

Yeah, it was 3am, but I work nights, so I am up LOL. You took him back because he was being himself? Haha! Mine would kill anything they saw too, they won't even leave the snails alone when they are climbing the glass.

 

[anna0219]

haha oh my gosh, those are some interesting stories! yeah, since i started this thread a couple weeks ago, i ended up getting a tetra whisper filter that works great with my bettas (the current was a little strong but my lovely boyfriend helped me rig a natural art sponge on the outflow and now my fish seem to enjoy the extra bubbles) and bought three lovely betta girls.

they all have so much personality! a little too much in some cases - i actually had to take one of the three out.

their names are piper (the smallest and the one who temporarily lives in her own bowl because they were chasing and nipping at her too much) and she is a brilliant ruby red color, gwen, who is the middle of the heirarchy and was the meanest to piper and who is a soft lemony yellow with transparent fits, and aquaneesha (that one named by my roommate) who is the biggest, the dominant one, and who is a bright teal-y blue.

you guys are right, they have so much personality. now that piper has been safely removed, gwen and aqua have become pals, chasing each other sometimes and other times swimming so close together their sides are touching. piper is totally a mama's girl now that i pitied her and gave her a separate bowl. she is always looking at me when i get up in the morning, hoping for some food!

i am planning on putting a divider back in the tank so piper can get the benefits of the filtered and heated water, but i am a college student with four midterms and one week between me and spring break, so piper will have to enjoy her 1 gallon bowl until i can get home for break and get crafty.

any recommendations for a good way to build a divider?

and thanks for recommending the betta girls - even though they aren't as flashy as the boys, they are just as fun to watch. and just as pretty!

 

[sieski]

Yeah, it was 3am, but I work nights, so I am up LOL. You took him back because he was being himself? Haha! Mine would kill anything they saw too, they won't even leave the snails alone when they are climbing the glass.

No I took him back because he was a murdering little er you know lol. He was fine till I ad 2 honey gouramis. I was told after that was a big mistake and in the same thread was told that was nonsense and had loads of stories of gouramis and bettas co-existing.All I know he had to go 2 honey g's 1 platy a BIG mollie and a injured yo yo loach :s

After that he was just puffed up at anything thatmoved.I removed him from tank for a week moved others for a week left a guppy and snail re arranged decor put them all back in like suggested and he just wanted more blood lol

 

[dkpate]

Anna~ You can buy some plastic mesh from Walmart, it's like $3 for 6 sheets in the craft section, and rig up some way for it to stay in place. The betta girls will get more bright too, with your TLC.

Sieski~ You DID have a killer betta! Geez...LOL

 

[anna0219]

okay, sounds great! I will check into that.

 

[7Enigma]

Well she was right and wrong. Certainly changing 100% of the water is bad because you're taking away all the fish waste at once meaning that any bacteria that has grown will then starve and die. Which is why the recommendation is you change max 50% of the water in one go, so the bacteria still have something to live off for a while.

No she was completely wrong. And your post is also not accurate. We don't recommend changing 100% of the water because you'd have to stress the fish to put it in a container if you were truly draining the tank to the ground. Also unless you do frequent large water changes the water chemistry will be very different than tap water which would further stress the fish. The beneficial bacteria will not "starve" from large water changes that remove waste material. Fish are constantly producing ammonia through their gills that keeps a constant trace amount in the water. Our hobby-grade kits cannot detect the levels but they are there everytime the fish takes a "breath".

Many discus owners frequently do extremely large water changes (80-90%, sometimes DAILY) without any issues and beautiful fish.

In the off chance that you had a really dirty tank with a lot of ammonia production from overfeeding/waste buildup, yes if you removed everything and didn't feed the fish some of the beneficial bacteria would die, but the dying bacteria would supply additional ammonia that would be consumed by the remaining bacteria buffering the change.

Anna,

Keep an eye out (ie buy a liquid test kit) for ammonia and nitrIte right now as your tank is cycling. The activated carbon of your insert will only work for a short time (maybe a week) before the ammonia levels will start to climb. When you detect ammonia/nitrIte you want to start daily water changes to keep the levels below 0.25ppm. Keep feedings to a minimum, say, every other day and only feed what they can eat in a couple minutes. Remove excess food immediately to prevent it from rotting.

You can lower the flow and increase the biological filtration by cutting a slit in a sponge filter insert and putting it over the intake tube. You can buy a pack of 3 Aquaclear20 foam inserts for $3-4 and they work perfectly. Also, and this is very important, IGNORE the Whisper directions and DO NOT change out the insert. Just wash the insert lightly in used tank water if the flow gets too low and then simply put it back in.

Goodluck, and try to get a picture posted if possible!

 

[sieski]

No she was completely wrong. And your post is also not accurate. We don't recommend changing 100% of the water because you'd have to stress the fish to put it in a container if you were truly draining the tank to the ground. Also unless you do frequent large water changes the water chemistry will be very different than tap water which would further stress the fish. The beneficial bacteria will not "starve" from large water changes that remove waste material. Fish are constantly producing ammonia through their gills that keeps a constant trace amount in the water. Our hobby-grade kits cannot detect the levels but they are there everytime the fish takes a "breath".

Many discus owners frequently do extremely large water changes (80-90%, sometimes DAILY) without any issues and beautiful fish.

In the off chance that you had a really dirty tank with a lot of ammonia production from overfeeding/waste buildup, yes if you removed everything and didn't feed the fish some of the beneficial bacteria would die, but the dying bacteria would supply additional ammonia that would be consumed by the remaining bacteria buffering the change.

Anna,

Keep an eye out (ie buy a liquid test kit) for ammonia and nitrIte right now as your tank is cycling. The activated carbon of your insert will only work for a short time (maybe a week) before the ammonia levels will start to climb. When you detect ammonia/nitrIte you want to start daily water changes to keep the levels below 0.25ppm. Keep feedings to a minimum, say, every other day and only feed what they can eat in a couple minutes. Remove excess food immediately to prevent it from rotting.

You can lower the flow and increase the biological filtration by cutting a slit in a sponge filter insert and putting it over the intake tube. You can buy a pack of 3 Aquaclear20 foam inserts for $3-4 and they work perfectly. Also, and this is very important, IGNORE the Whisper directions and DO NOT change out the insert. Just wash the insert lightly in used tank water if the flow gets too low and then simply put it back in.

Goodluck, and try to get a picture posted if possible!

+1 though I'd try the filter without cutting the flow to see if your betta doesn't mind the flow. As I said mine loves to swim against the current. My mass murderer lol stayed over the half of the tank where the current had worn off.