New to having fish and happy to have a betta fish

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dragon14

Aquarium Advice Addict
Joined
Sep 6, 2014
Messages
1,215
Location
Eastern USA
Hello,

My husband and I got a cute little betta fish named Bubbles about three months ago. At first we bought him a 2gallon tank, but he quickly got upgraded into a 10 gallon tank, which he loved, and was in for about a month and a half or so!

Due to us not doing a water change like we should have just one time... he got mild fin rot while in the 10 gallon tank. A good friend of mine (she has been oh-so-helpful with helping me and teaching me things we never knew about having fish!) told me to treat him with salt, so I did, in the 2 gallon tank we had him in. While still in his 2 gallon tank, we forgot to change the water as soon as we should have just one time about two weeks later, and it got worse. His poor tail looks shredded and a large pinhole was in his dorsal fin, and has now ripped through. So he got a stronger salt treatment. He is strictly getting his water changed every other day in that tank now, most of it changed, leaving just enough for him to swim for about 2 minutes while we add more.

We are currently doing a fishless cycle on the 10 gallon tank, and changed out the gravel for sand (wish we'd listened to my friend in the first place!) since it is actually much cleaner, and also we wanted to get some pygmy cory catfish eventually, and gravel is not good for catfish, as it damages their mouth parts/whiskers. The cycle seems to be going very well so far! :D I am hopeful Bubbles will be in his tank by the end of the month or early next month. He loves his 10gallon tank, I hate having him in the smaller one. He has a cute floating log though that he absolutely LOVES and he plays in it a lot. We call him our logfish when he is playing in it, hehe.

We had originally gotten a 20 gallon tank, but quickly returned it after realizing we didn't have the time or energy to deal w a fishless cycle at the time due to our beloved kitty being unwell at the time. He passed away the morning after we got Bubbles actually (3 months ago now). Bubbles has been a great help to me after losing our dear friend. I love him just as much as any other pet, and I love that I have someone hear with me, even though I can't hug him and pet him. I talk to him when I feed him, randomly throughout the day, and I love spending time with him. I hate that the ammonia got to be too much in his tanks, but, he is on the mend now and now we know to be diligent with water changes!

Anyway, I hope to learn a lot while I am here, and I have posted a couple of threads already under the freshwater forum, which I welcome everyone to check out.

Thank you and have a great day, I hope to get to know the people here :)
 
Hi! I'm NatureFish! I'm new to aquariums but not to fish. I've had koi and goldfish all my life and I'm just starting out my tank too! It's a ten gallon and I'm trying to cycle it! I've had bettas before but they were in a huge glass vase. I want to add African dwarf frogs once everything stabilizes.


NatureFish
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Do you have a filter? If not that may be part of your problem...


NatureFish
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Hi NatureFish! :)

I love koi! :) Goldfish are pretty cool too! I've never had either though. Both kinds need a lot a lot of space :)

How are you doing your cycle? How big was the vase you had the betta in? Did she or he have a heater? How often did you change the water? :)

Yes, we absolutely have a filter! He hates it in the little tank so we have an intake sponge over the output of the pump. Before he was put back into it to be treated and quarantined while we cycled the tank, we had some kind of plastic tubing covering it and blowing the output into the gravel which worked well for a bit, but, it was clouding up the water which we didn't like.
 
The vase was more like a a glass pot and I'm not sure of its dimensions. My cycle is going good I literally just put water in the other day and Im going to order a API test kit tonight if I get a chance. all the bettas ive ever had never had heaters and I changed the water every week or so. I took my betta out every time and did a 100% change and neither one of them got stressed out by it. I had two over the years.


NatureFish
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I bought the tests individually because at first I only bought ph and ammonia. then I bought nitrite, nitrate. and I bought a second ammonia kit since I am testing ammonia so often just so that I don't run out.

If you ever have one in the future, betta fish need a heater, unless your room temp is always around 78-80... they are a tropical fish and need a heater :) how many gallons was the vase/pot? after just 5 days, my ammonia was .5ppm in the almost 2gallon tank and my poor fish was having fin rot issues again after already being treated once when he was in .25ppm water (and that was in the 10 gallon, waited almost two weeks to change it, ugh!)... ammonia builds up FAST in a small environment. I'm glad that your bettas didn't seem stressed though, but, if you ever have on in the future, please keep in mind what I said. It is so so important :)
 
Oh yes I know I only did that because I was mis informed. But now I have a ten gallon with a heater and filter. The vase was not even one gallon it was probably about half a gallon


NatureFish
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It's so annoying when pet store employees (who should know what they are doing!) don't have a clue what they are talking about and then give bad advice. That's what happened with my bettas! They said to put them in a vase without a filter or heater! They did ok but now I know how to do things properly when it comes to betta fish.


NatureFish
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I completely agree! It's not your fault, you didn't know. Thank goodness I had a good friend who helped me a LOT! I told her we were thinking about getting fish before I actually GOT a fish, so, that was good :)

Now you know though, so, that is what matters, and you won't make the same mistakes again :)
 
I wanna see your fishie! What's his name again?


NatureFish
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When I get my betta I'm going to find the sickest one and nurse it back to health. It's horrible how big chain stores have them in little cups with no food or clean water!


NatureFish
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Bubbles! My icon picture is my fish :)

Yes, I agree that it is awful... :( PetCo has a ton of them. The other pet stores I have seen don't have as many as PetCo though, which is good. I got him at PetCo. We weren't going to get a fish that day, but, I fell in love with him when I saw him. So I had to get him. He had just come in that day, so he was a nice healthy boy :D
 
My first betta was a blue veil tail named bubbles! I was 11 I think when I got him! Petco is where I plan to get my new betta since usually they have pretty unhealthy fish and I want to save one. Have you ever seen the betas labeled as baby beta? I want one so I will get to spend more time with it versus one that's already 6-10 months old.


NatureFish
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Aww that's awesome! It's a good name for him, he's quite the little bubble-nest maker :) And he makes little bubbles randomly sometimes too.

Yes I have. The person there that we chatted with when I got him was saying how they are a bit harder to care for at first. I thought it was a different betta sub-species at first LOL didn't realize it was actually a young betta... LOL

I would love to rescue some betta fish, but I haven't the space or time or $ to invest in getting more than one betta unfortunately. There were 6 at WalMart I saw a few times when we went... they looked so sad and I wanted to take them home.... I hope water is changed daily in those little cups that places put them in. And in winter time... they need heat, I worry about that too :( I wish I could help them all! And I wish places would become educated on betta fish and their needs vs the myths that never go away! :(
 
:( poor poor bettas! We should start a betta rescue organization!!!


NatureFish
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That is a good idea!

Also, educating people, family, friends, coworkers, etc... especially people who have fish or have had fish... educate them! And encourage them to educate others as well! There is too much mis information out there about lots of fish and fish care, not just betta fish. People need to do the best they can to teach others :)
 
Yes very true! There's a YouTube channel called solid gold. The lady on that channel seems very nice and is very knowledgeable about goldfish. She is making a huge difference in how the community is caring for goldfish.


NatureFish
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That is fantastic! Too many goldfish are put into too small homes, just like betta fish are often put into too small homes.

Goldfish need I think MINIMUM 30 gallons and that is like just one fish needs that. I could be wrong about that size, that may be too small, but, they definitely need a lot of space. If I had any, I would do at least a 50g tank. It makes me so upset to think of them in little 1 or 2 gallon bowls. Ugh. So inappropriate. Goldfish, when properly cared for, can live a good 15-20 years or even more!

But I don't think we'll do anything larger than the 10gallon we are starting for quite a while! We also don't have much room, so, that is a factor as well. A 10 gallon is perfect for us and what we want to do with it.

Maybe a 20 gallon some day...
 
Are you going to get tank mates for bubbles? Can you post a picture of him since your profile picture is too small to see detail? If you've heard of elephant eared betta that's the kind I'm wanting to get. I heard bad things about rose tail and feather tail betta... Anyone care to clear up those rumors or to agree with them?


NatureFish
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We will get some pygmy cory cat fish at some point soon!

Sure, I can send you a picture sometime! :) The larger versions are kind of hard to make out sometimes though :/

Oh cute! :) The cup labeled him as a "butterfly male" but looking at pictures of different bettas leads me to believe he was either that or something else (can't remember the name at the moment).

I don't know about the answer to what you asked though. I hope someone else chimes in :)
 
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