My First Betta

I'm the proud owner of a betta I chose him off a breeder's website and went to pick him up today. He's more blue than I'd expected and I think he's gorgeous. Definitely worth resisting the pinky-purple one I'd seen in my LFS. I've been told he's a 4 month old halfmoon. He's so nosey and has explored everything in his tank in between blowing bubbles in the corners. I'm trying not to name him yet.
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He's absolutely gorgeous!! Great find!! Congrats!

Very handsome! I like his colouring!

I agree he's stunning such beautiful colours...are you planning on naming him later when you've seen his characteristics and personality.

Thanks. I've been looking at him and checking he's ok all afternoon. He seems to have settled into my living room ok given that he had been living in a jar in a fish room til now. Several times I've caught him watching TV! He gave me a fright by disappearing totally for ages. I couldn't see him anywhere so, fearing the worst, lifted the filter off to check he wasn't in there. Silly fishy was hiding up the plastic jobby that holds the Chi filter to the glass. Crisis over!
Nataliey, I do plan on naming him, but don't want to get too attached until I'm sure he's going to make it (I've had terrible fish luck recently). He's going to be just "fishy" until next weekend.

Be careful, "fishy" might stick for a name!

2tall wrote:Be careful, "fishy" might stick for a name!

Haha it might just...i know what you mean tho...

I've noticed this evening that my boy has a couple of splits in his tail. They weren't there this morning. He seems sprightly in himself and gobbled up his pellets. Will they heal? Any tips to stop this happening again?

It could just be from the moving stress or excessive flaring but the biggest case of fin splits is water quality... is your tank fully cycled? water stats ok?

The breeder may also have been a bit late with a water change and it's took a few days to show up

If it's not fin rot it should heal fast on it's own, it shouldn't get any worse and you should see some pale/white regrowth on the bottom of the split with in a day or two. A pinch of salt per 10ltrs of water will help the healing process.

If it is the onset of finrot then medicate with a fin rot med like myxazin, again the pinch of salt will do no harm and either way keep his water stats spot on. Finrot will get worse if untreated.

If you can get a close up pic I could possibly tell you if it's fin rot or not. (btw before you know it you will have a bigger meds cabinet for your fish than yourself lol)

As long as his medicine cabinet is smaller than the hamsters's! Thanks, Kel. I'll get some salt in there this evening. I've got filter media from a friend and am checking the stats daily with 25% changes whenever the nitrites/ammonia are up (I tried fishless cycling but after 5 weeks of fiddling with ammonia and checking until all was well all the fish that went in the tank died so I wasn't keen on trying that again). I've done water changes yesterday and today, but after reading up I think I've been overgenerous with the feeding (4-6 pellets/day) so he's going down to 2 a day. I have some freeze dried blood worm and the gel-based brine shrimp is coming in the post as a twice weekly treat and I plan on one fast day per week with 1/4 pea every week too.

ETA: by salt, do you mean aquarium salt? Excuse the newby question, as I only have the salt you put on chips here and thought I'd ask before putting it near my beautiful fish in case it was the wrong sort

Yes it would be aquarium salt. Epsom's salt for drospy from a reliable source!

My fish seems to have vanished. I really have no idea where he is. He was swimming in his tank at about 8pm last night when I fed him through the mesh. He wasn't there at 9.30pm, but he did have a habit of hiding in the plants. This morning I still couldn't see him and had a quick hunt round before work. This evening I've spent over an hour thoroughly searching the tank - looking in all the plants, pulling out the bushiest plants to look through, inside the ornament, behind the heater and airline, under the bogwood and even dismantled the filter. I've searched outside the tank too even through the mesh was on and can't fall off. I guess he's died as I can't find him, though I really hope he turns up.

The only other pets I have are hamsters and they are all in their cages with none looking soggy or guilty. He hasn't been left with his lid off without supervision and every time I took it off, I checked he was in there when it went back on. He has no other friends in the tank, not even a little snail from the plants. There is a 2mm gap around the filter and where the wires go to the heater at the back. I'm not sure he could have limbo'd under it while jumping though.

The water parameters weren't perfect, but were stable - pH 7.5-8, ammonia 0, nitrite 0.3, nitrate 10. The last couple of nights the nitrites had been 0.5-0.8 (similar to the water he came in) so I'd done 20% water changes (conditioned bottled water/tapwater mix to get the right pH) which had helped.

I really don't think I'm a natural fish keeper. This lad survived 3 days in my tank which is the longest so far. I'm getting really disheartened with my fish tank.

How strange! He has to be somewhere though. Somehow I hope you figure it all out. Also don't blame yourself as a lot of people have unexpected horror stories happen. Let us know so we can add another to the checklist. Sorry!

OH Im sorry hun but dont get disheartened. I basically killed my first fish, and I felt awful but it was a very steep learning curve. With Kel and the guys help here they taught me sooo much, it's amazing. There was no guilt, even though I'd basically killed the little guy with ignorance. And months down the line I even got a couple of spawns going

So keep looking, he may turn up yet, its highly unlikely by the sounds of it he jumped out the tank, he may just be feeling a little under the weather, some of mine vanish for a few hours, then pop out the blue!

chin up, it happens to the best of us my dog ate one of mine whilst i was doing a cleanout it jumped out and yes the dog ate it alive i was horrified, but accidents do happen, dont be put off by it, i really hope he turns up,

Thanks everyone. Still no sign of him anywhere in the tank, filter or surroundings despite searching on hands and knees. I really hope he's ok, but I'm really doubting it.

I'm so disappointed as my last few lots of fish have died very quicky (7 white cloud mountain minnow, a further 3 white clouds and 3 zebra danios) - thought to be due to pH shock after much discussion with fishy friends. I'm not sure what to do now. I don't want to put any more fish in if he's still there and alive.

I would strip the decor out of the tank hun.... he's got to be somewhere, could be wedged in something.

losing that many you do need to sort ph etc. but don't give up, you have the sense to test water so now you need to stabilise it.

Is the tank 2nd hand? many peeps sell tanks when they've had a lot of illness... there may be nasties lingering if so.

Most fish will cope with extreme ph compared to ideal as long as its steady and are introduced slowly over hours.

ph is hard to adjust successfully, bog wood, ro water, almond leaves and blackwater extract will alter it but then you get spikes with what you do water change with etc.

buffers are 'use at own risk' as often they'll bring it down perfect then 48hrs later the ph spikes back up ... fish will do far better with getting used to what you have or try rain water if you have a waterbutt thats accessable.

Thanks, Kel. Yesterday, I removed the ornament (checked the hollow inside too), bogwood and the bushiest plants. I've checked the bogwood and under the anubias tied to it. I've also raked and vacuumed all the gravel. I checked the filter again, including taking the cover off the impeller. I even pulled the heater and airline off in case he was stuck in the sucky things. Guess I'll just have to keep on looking.

The tank was brand new in a box and rinsed before set up. Between the minnow and danios, all gravel etc was rinsed in boiling water. Before the betta everything was stripped out and chucked away - gravel, ornaments, filter media, plants. The tank was filled with boiling water and rinsed through several times, as was the filter housing which I also scrubbed. The betta was intorduced to tap water over 1.5hours with it dripfed into a bucket via airline with kinks in. I'll do it slower next time.

I must confess the pH had snuck up to 8 again as I bought a different brand of bottled water (I hadn't realised the differences). If future I will stick to one brand and always pH test my 'topup' water before adding to the tank. Buffering chemicals have not been anywhere near my tank.

I've lost Bettas mysteriously before. Once out of the tank and on the floor they will flop and wiggle around until they (discovered at a later time) fall in the smallest crack or behind the stand, dresser or carpet edge. You'd be suprised what they can disappear into.