Gylie
Aquarium Advice Newbie
So last Monday (Jan 30), I brought home a red male betta fish from school. I think its a young fish because my prof just purchased them for our lab. This is my first fish ever. I put him in a 5 gallon tank, with lots of live plants, a piece of driftwood, large pebbles, and natural substrate. The water temp was about 78F. Very happy fish, made a bubble nest the next day .
3 days later he had ich spots on his body , so I read up about how to treat that and on Friday (Feb 3) I bought some aquarium salt, a heater, and I also got a cascade internal filter (and modified it so there isn't too much current). I raised the temp to 81/82F over the weekend and added 1 tsp of salt (I wanted to start low).
All was well, ich spots disappeared within a day. But I just got home from school and now the end of his tail fin is shredded and he has more ich spots on his fins. I looked up fin rot, but it looks more like he got it caught in something or bit it? I did a 30% water change and I'm going to slowly raise the temp to 86F and keep it there for 10 days.
My tank parameters are 0 ammonia, 0 nitrites, 0-20 nitrites, 81/82F, pH 7. I had no idea about the nitrogen cycle before I started but I do 20% water changes every other day with water conditioner and 1 tsp salt. He also gets fed 3-4 betta biogold pellets in the morning and 3-4 at night.
I guess I just want to know if I am doing this right. Did the ich cause him to shred his tail somehow? Or did raising the water temp stress him out? He also hasn't made a bubble nest since I raised the temp to 81F and I'm worried he doesn't like the heat.
Sorry for the long post. I am totally new at this so any help I can get from more experienced fishkeepers or anybody in the same boat is greatly appreciated. Thanks so much!
3 days later he had ich spots on his body , so I read up about how to treat that and on Friday (Feb 3) I bought some aquarium salt, a heater, and I also got a cascade internal filter (and modified it so there isn't too much current). I raised the temp to 81/82F over the weekend and added 1 tsp of salt (I wanted to start low).
All was well, ich spots disappeared within a day. But I just got home from school and now the end of his tail fin is shredded and he has more ich spots on his fins. I looked up fin rot, but it looks more like he got it caught in something or bit it? I did a 30% water change and I'm going to slowly raise the temp to 86F and keep it there for 10 days.
My tank parameters are 0 ammonia, 0 nitrites, 0-20 nitrites, 81/82F, pH 7. I had no idea about the nitrogen cycle before I started but I do 20% water changes every other day with water conditioner and 1 tsp salt. He also gets fed 3-4 betta biogold pellets in the morning and 3-4 at night.
I guess I just want to know if I am doing this right. Did the ich cause him to shred his tail somehow? Or did raising the water temp stress him out? He also hasn't made a bubble nest since I raised the temp to 81F and I'm worried he doesn't like the heat.
Sorry for the long post. I am totally new at this so any help I can get from more experienced fishkeepers or anybody in the same boat is greatly appreciated. Thanks so much!