I just joined this website, so I will work on putting in my fish information in a little bit...I'm just really worried about one of our female bettas. (I'll try to make this as short as I can xD)
My family and I are brand new to having an aquarium. We bought our first fishies about a month ago--3 female bettas (Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup...we wanted to go with names that were a group of 3 lol). Our tank is pretty big; I don't remember exactly how many gallons, but it's a tall hexagon tank. We waited a little over a week in between adding new fish, and right now we have the 3 bettas, 2 goldfish (Pablo and Sanchez; i don't know the gender because my sister won them at the fair), 2 male guppies (Speck and Rip), and a female silver molly (Molly). We did have a female dalmatian molly (Dolly), but she died earlier today...we don't think she was very healthy to begin with
Thursday night, I noticed Bubbles was looking kinda pale. Did a little research, learned that bettas can become pale because they are stressed, looked back in the tank, and then saw a very tiny baby fishy
After doing more research, it turns out that Molly was pregnant when we bought her (I came to the conclusion that it was her because I remembered seeing that black dot a couple days before and 'cause she was suddenly not as pudgy). Sadly, because my parents told me to leave them alone and stop trying to catch the baby fish to isolate them, I'm guessing they were all eaten since I didn't see any all day yesterday. Bubbles, however, was still a bit pale, but not too bad (keep in mind....before this series of events, she was completely normal).
We also ended up learning yesterday that our nitrate lvl in the tank was practically off the charts, and we had been feeding the fishies too much (once at morning, once at night....this adding to the nitrate level issue). We got advice about how much water to change (about 20%) and had someone tell us how to vacuum the pebbles at the bottom, so we did that last night. Bubbles was still about as pale as the night before when i looked into the tank this morning.
Right now, she is VERY pale....almost like a ghost white. She's also really skittish--I'll go to put my finger on the outside of the tank near she was floating and she'd zip away as fast as possible, almost as if she is terrified of something. I was busy all day, so i don't know how she looked when we learned that Dolly had died. I can understand how the changes within the last couple of days could make a fish feel stressed, but Bubbles is the only one acting like this. Please help!!!
My family and I are brand new to having an aquarium. We bought our first fishies about a month ago--3 female bettas (Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup...we wanted to go with names that were a group of 3 lol). Our tank is pretty big; I don't remember exactly how many gallons, but it's a tall hexagon tank. We waited a little over a week in between adding new fish, and right now we have the 3 bettas, 2 goldfish (Pablo and Sanchez; i don't know the gender because my sister won them at the fair), 2 male guppies (Speck and Rip), and a female silver molly (Molly). We did have a female dalmatian molly (Dolly), but she died earlier today...we don't think she was very healthy to begin with
Thursday night, I noticed Bubbles was looking kinda pale. Did a little research, learned that bettas can become pale because they are stressed, looked back in the tank, and then saw a very tiny baby fishy
After doing more research, it turns out that Molly was pregnant when we bought her (I came to the conclusion that it was her because I remembered seeing that black dot a couple days before and 'cause she was suddenly not as pudgy). Sadly, because my parents told me to leave them alone and stop trying to catch the baby fish to isolate them, I'm guessing they were all eaten since I didn't see any all day yesterday. Bubbles, however, was still a bit pale, but not too bad (keep in mind....before this series of events, she was completely normal).We also ended up learning yesterday that our nitrate lvl in the tank was practically off the charts, and we had been feeding the fishies too much (once at morning, once at night....this adding to the nitrate level issue). We got advice about how much water to change (about 20%) and had someone tell us how to vacuum the pebbles at the bottom, so we did that last night. Bubbles was still about as pale as the night before when i looked into the tank this morning.
Right now, she is VERY pale....almost like a ghost white. She's also really skittish--I'll go to put my finger on the outside of the tank near she was floating and she'd zip away as fast as possible, almost as if she is terrified of something. I was busy all day, so i don't know how she looked when we learned that Dolly had died. I can understand how the changes within the last couple of days could make a fish feel stressed, but Bubbles is the only one acting like this. Please help!!!
We did get a box of the Tetra Parasite Guard when my sister brought home the new dalmatian molly, so we used 3 of the tablets that night. Blossom still looks like she has quite a few sticking out of her anus a little bit, and I noticed earlier when I looked at the other 2 bettas that they're starting to show signs of the worms now too (it looks like they both have 1 worm sticking out a little). I'm beginning to wonder if the Tetra Parasite Guard will even be effective (I have some very fine-tipped tweezers and have thought of maybe using those to pull out some that are sticking out of Blossom, but I don't know if that'll be more harm than good). The box says "Remove Carbon from filter during use. (I even asked my sister if it said anything about that before she even dropped any tablets into the tank, and all she said was "It'll be fine") Treatment may be repeated up to 2 times with 48 hours between treatments and a 25% water change." Since we did the first treatment on the 24th, I want to do another one after we do the water change, but dad says it's too soon to do another water change and that he's gonna go by what the person at the pet shop he took the water sample to said.
