Rayven
Aquarium Advice Newbie
My 6 year old daughter has chosen 2 bettas as our latest additions to our menagerie. She has done a very good job learning about the bettas, general procedural rules and overall fastidiousness which has been lovely. She also has the responsibility of feeding them twice a day, observing them in the act of eating, and reporting to mommy (who secretly watches anyway) who ate how much and so forth.
She chose a male and a female betta. I purchased a Marineland 3 gallon tank with the intention of placing a divider but the one I tried did not fit snugly and so we moved the female to a larger plastic terrarium until I could get a second tank. Now she is in a 1.5 gallon cube tank with a very simple Whisper pump/filter.
So now comes the fun part. My daughter pointed out this cloudy fuzz-looking material on the male's eye 2 days ago. I did some research here and on the ultimatebettas site and I'm leaning toward possible columnaris. Yesterday, we got to teach my daughter how to not cross-contaminate. Fun times. Anyway, I got a thermometer and some test strips (after the unexpected second tank purchase, I just couldn't afford the nice big api kit with the vials this week) and it seems we have freakishly hard water. I knew we had generally hard water, of course. You should see my "clean" wine glasses. But I'm wondering what to do that would soften the water to an acceptable and comfortable level for the bettas. I've been reading that chemical manipulation of water conditions, save for the products that remove chlorine an such (which I use already) can be a dangerous process and isn't recommended. I did purchase conditioning salt as part of the columnaris treatment but I'm wondering if that will also be something that should be added as a matter of course for both fish instead of just a medicinal.
Anyway, it's been several years since I've had fish and I'm just a little rusty. I'd appreciate general feedback and advice.
Thanks for your time.
Rayven
She chose a male and a female betta. I purchased a Marineland 3 gallon tank with the intention of placing a divider but the one I tried did not fit snugly and so we moved the female to a larger plastic terrarium until I could get a second tank. Now she is in a 1.5 gallon cube tank with a very simple Whisper pump/filter.
So now comes the fun part. My daughter pointed out this cloudy fuzz-looking material on the male's eye 2 days ago. I did some research here and on the ultimatebettas site and I'm leaning toward possible columnaris. Yesterday, we got to teach my daughter how to not cross-contaminate. Fun times. Anyway, I got a thermometer and some test strips (after the unexpected second tank purchase, I just couldn't afford the nice big api kit with the vials this week) and it seems we have freakishly hard water. I knew we had generally hard water, of course. You should see my "clean" wine glasses. But I'm wondering what to do that would soften the water to an acceptable and comfortable level for the bettas. I've been reading that chemical manipulation of water conditions, save for the products that remove chlorine an such (which I use already) can be a dangerous process and isn't recommended. I did purchase conditioning salt as part of the columnaris treatment but I'm wondering if that will also be something that should be added as a matter of course for both fish instead of just a medicinal.
Anyway, it's been several years since I've had fish and I'm just a little rusty. I'd appreciate general feedback and advice.
Thanks for your time.
Rayven
