Betta Fins

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Rose22

Aquarium Advice Regular
Joined
Feb 18, 2013
Messages
70
Location
South Dakota
I'm setting up a 5 gallon tank at work for a betta. I've been testing/monitoring the chemistry. Today it was 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, 5-10 nitrate. I want to let it run until Monday before adding my fish. With Easter vacation this weekend I wont be at work Fri-Mon and dont want to leave him alone that long the first few days in the new tank.

Okay, sorry that took so long. Here is my story/question. Against my better judgement :rolleyes:, I went strolling through the betta section at the local pet store yesterday. Of course, I found the most beautiful blue/green betta. :facepalm: He was so active and happy, completely alert and interested in what is going on. Curious and friendly. I instantly wanted to bring him home, but his fins look pretty bad. I'm not sure if its fin rot or if he had been fighting. He flares his fins and swims with them nicely fanned out, but they are pretty battered/torn. They are not all the way down to his body. I'd say they are about a quarter of an inch from his body. Other then the fins he seems great. Do I get him? Is there a way to help his fins grow back?

I do have an extra 1 gallon tank I could set up to put him in at my house until Tuesday when I go back to work. I think some clean water in a 1 gallon would be better then sitting in the dirty cup with 1 inch of water at least for a few days. I've been thinking about him all day, but wanted to see what you guys think. Thanks.
 
You can buy him and put him in the 1-gal temporarily. His fins probably will grow back with clean water. If you do get him, post a picture and I'll try to help more, like if its fin rot or fighting or ammonia.
 
Okay, so after thinking about him for 2 days, I went back and got Neptune. What a terrible experience that was. I added pics of what he looks like. They aren't great, and I could only get 2 before my camera died. Go figure. Any help fixing his fins would be great.

I really want to vent about my experience at the store, so that's what the rest of this post is. If you have ideas to help him and dont care about the crappy store, stop reading. :)

Fish Store Horror :devilish:
To begin with, the girl who was bagging fish had absolutely NO idea what she was doing. The person she was helping before me asked for 5 fish out of this one tank. The tank had a few different species of fish in it, but it was pretty clear which ones the guy wanted. She caught 5 fish from the tank, 2 the guys wanted 2 of fish and a pleco. She didn't even know they were different fish!! So after that got taken care of, it was my turn. The place they house bettas at this store isn't the tupperware container idea, these cups are even smaller, they hold maybe 1 cup of actual water. This wall has rows of these cups, about 8 across, and 5 rows down. There is this waterfall thing that starts at the top, and overflows the first cup, which spills into the cup below it, which spills in to the cup below it, etc. until the overflow reaches the bottom and spills into a trough to be recycled. The bettas have WAY too much water movement, and the ones on the bottom (Which is where Neptune was) get all the waste from the fish above them. They had also placed a bottle of water balancer right in front of Neptune's cup. I think they didn't want people to see him and were waiting for him to die. Anyway, she took out his cup from the wall and just flipped the whole thing into the bag. :eek: No gentle pour, no care at all just dumped him in the bag. I gasped when she did it, and she just looked at me like "what's your problem?"

So I take Neptune in a bag of what looks like about 95% poop to the counter to pay for him. The check out person looks at him, wrinkles her nose and asked "are you sure you want this one?" I told her I really liked his spunk and wanted to try to get his fins to grow back. A little clean water would go a long way. Then another employee, I'm pretty sure he is the guy responsible for all the aquariums in the store, over heard what I said and was like "Don't change his water too fast." I explained that I knew about acclimating them slowly etc. and he responded with "No I mean dont put him in really clean water. Bettas dont like clean water. They prefer it when there is a lot of gunk in their water." :mad: Seriously!!!!! and you are the nimrod telling first time pet owners what they should and should not do. I will not be going back there, which is too bad because this is our locally owned pet store. Even though the chains are not great, it HAS to be better then this place.

After all these terrible things, I really hope I can give Neptune everything he needs. Any help getting him back on his fins would be great.
 

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Wow... "Bettas don't like clean water" is possibly one of the most ridiculous things I've ever heard. I wouldn't be going back there either...

Honestly, his fins don't look too bad. I was expecting much worse, actually. He's very pretty. I think you will probably have luck with just clean water. Lots of water changes, maybe with a little salt and he should be on the mend.
 
Honestly, his fins don't look too bad. I was expecting much worse, actually. He's very pretty. I think you will probably have luck with just clean water. Lots of water changes, maybe with a little salt and he should be on the mend.

Yeah. Seeing him not next to the other bettas he doesn't look that bad. When he was next to all the others with their long flowing tails he looked terrible.

So just do frequent water changes and that should fix it? How much water should I change and how often?
 
The one looks like ammonia, which, with your description of his conditions, doesn't surprise me. If you can get closer pictures of his other fins, that would be great, but if not, it's okay. I would use Seachem Prime to help keep the ammonia nontoxic and minimal. Also, use a liquid test kit and monitor it like no other. I feel he will take a while to get used to his new big and clean environment. His fins look like they'll grow back to me, but I'm also worried about his general health being in conditions like that.
 
He's a pretty boy & based on the pics he looks much better than some I've seen in their pathetic little cups. I think with clean, conditioned, 78-80F temped water he'll be good. I know you said you were taking to work & if I remember the tank has been set up, have you been doing a fish LESS cycling with an ammonia source? If not you'll be doing a fish IN cycle so make sure you have a liquid test kit to watch the ammonia, nitrites, nitrates levels.
 
He's a pretty boy & based on the pics he looks much better than some I've seen in their pathetic little cups. I think with clean, conditioned, 78-80F temped water he'll be good. I know you said you were taking to work & if I remember the tank has been set up, have you been doing a fish LESS cycling with an ammonia source? If not you'll be doing a fish IN cycle so make sure you have a liquid test kit to watch the ammonia, nitrites, nitrates levels.

I sort of did a modified cycle. I took the bio sponge from the 5 gallon tank and put it in the filter of my big tank, which has been up and running for quite a while, for about 2ish weeks. You know until it got all gross looking :). I also added lots of extra substrate to the bottom of my big tank for a few weeks, to get the good bacteria growing on it. Once I was ready, I moved the extra biofilter and substrate out of the big tank and into the 5 gallon.

I've been using ammonia and testing the water about every other day. Monday the 18th, I was still getting a very very slight ammonia and nitrite reading, but that was the first day I had it set up. I did a 4ppm ammonia test on the 21st and 22nd I was getting 0ppm ammonia, 0ppm nitrite, around 80ppm nitrate. Did a 50% water change on Friday. Continued regular dosing of ammonia. On the 26th I did another 4ppm ammonia test, and had 0ppm ammonia and 0ppm nitrites, nitrates were between 5-10ppm on the 27th.

Obviously, I'll keep monitoring the levels once the fish is in, but do you think it is cycled?
 
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