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August 29th, 2012
elysianstarseed @ 01:18 am: Baby Betta ):
I just got a baby betta fish over the weekend. I have an adult betta and I'm very fond of her . She is 3 and a half years old. The baby betta fish didn't make it though. I'm crushd. I get very attached to animals and I'm just sad about it .I love having bettas now too and really want to get another one. Wheer have you all gotten betta's ? I gpt my older betta ( Starr ) at PetSmart and I've never had a problem with her. The baby betta...differen't story.
-Sissy
August 18th, 2011
banana13 @ 12:55 am: Turn, Turn, Turn.
(This is a follow up to these posts: May 7th and May 10th, and May 24th.)
Whelp, after two and a half years together, my little buddy, Charlie, has gone to betta heaven.
He was sick for a few months, and I tried just about every treatment and medication I could think of, but none if it seemed to be helping. Unfortunately, on August 9th, when I scooped Charlie out of his tank so I could clean it, I saw what I had been hoping I'd never see: Charlie was pineconed. Dropsy.
Sadly, dropsy is actually what I'd initially thought he might have when he first started acting out of sorts a few months ago. But since he wasn't terribly, terribly sick, his illness ended up being misdiagnosed as internal parasites. Or maybe he did have parasites and and that opened the gateway for the dropsy to get worse. I don't know.
At any rate, as much as it broke my heart, we euthanized Charlie later that night with clove oil and vodka. I hated to do it, but he'd been sick for so long, and he'd lost his will to fight. He hardly tried to get away the last time I scooped him out of his tank.
We buried him under the peony, next to his pal, Mac. Now they're both in that pig rice paddy in the sky.
R.I.P, little friend. ♥
It was making me too sad to see the stand Charlie's tank used to be on all empty, so my boyfriend took me to a pet store I trust (they get their bettas from reputable breeders instead of fish warehouses) yesterday.
Now, may I present to you, for the first time ever...
As you can see, he usually looks kind of teal/grey with grey streaks and white edges on his fins. But when the flash is on...
...he almost glows. : )
For now, Aldo's chillin' in my temporary little tank while I sanitize the everliving shit out of everything and pick up new supplies to replace the stuff that can't be sanitized.
So yeah. Sad times. But also happy ones. Welcome to the family, Aldo! : )
[Cross-posted to 
bettas]
Current Mood: bittersweet
May 24th, 2011
banana13 @ 04:11 am: Charlie Update Pt. 2
This is a follow up to these posts: May 7th and May 10th
So. I went to my local Petco after my last post, looking for some daphnia to feed Charlie. The employees all looked at me like I was speaking a different language. I tried to explain that my betta was constipated, and I needed some roughage for him. One guy asked me how I knew my fish was constipated. "Well, he's all bloated, and he's not pooping much.", I said. He countered, "Are you sure it's not just a pregnant female?". Fail. I ended up returning home with a tank thermometer, but no daphnia.
A couple of days later, I noticed that Charlie was swimming around a little more, although he still looked kind of off-kilter. I figured that after a week or so of hiding out, he could probably do with something to eat, so even though he was still looking bloated, I gave him a food pellet.
He eyeballed it for a while, then finally attacked it.
"Victory!", I thought, "If he's eating again, that means he must be getting better!".
Then he spit the pellet back out. Then he ate it. Then he spit it out. Then he looked at it with contempt (I swear), and swam away to the corner he's been hanging out in lately.
I've tried feeding him every few days since then, with similar results.
Then he started to poop. But it was, like, a little, milky-white poop, not his usual little betta poop nugget. Then he pooped some more, and it was little and milky-white again. Then, today, I noticed that he had a inch-and-a-half long trail of stringy, white poop trailing from him. ( I felt so weird trying to get a good picture of fish poop, but I figured it might be helpful...Collapse )
So what causes stringy, white poo?
[Cross-posted to bettas]
May 7th, 2011
banana13 @ 07:18 pm: If It Turns Out You're Just Being Lazy, I'm Gonna Be Pissed.
Something's wrong with Charlie. For the past week-ish, he's had no appetite at all, and he barely moves. For a while, he mostly sat at the bottom of his tank, behind his plants. Then my boyfriend and I noticed that he was swimming a little funny, so we thought he might be having swim bladder issues. Now, when he does swim (which is rarely), he seems to be holding himself just fine, but he spends the vast majority of his time wedged between some of the leaves of one of his plants (he's always made little forts in the leaves that he'll sleep in, but he never just stayed in there the way he is now).
I've completely cleaned out his tank and given him fresh water, the water is the same temperature it's always been, his scales and gills and fins and eyes all look fine, nothing has changed. But nothing is helping, either. He barely responds when I wiggle my fingers at him or put my face close to his tank. I don't know if he's sick, or if his age is just catching up with him. I mean, I got him, what, two years ago?
(Sigh.) I dunno. I'm just worried about my little Charlie-fish. I love this little guy, and if he doesn't get better soon, I'm gonna be really sad.
[Cross-posted to bettas
September 9th, 2010
youlooksofine @ 08:57 pm: So...I have no clue what these fish are doing...I added Catappa sp?) leaves to my tanks and bowls. Everyone has some in their tank. Supposedly it's good and makes the water a diluted tea color and that it increases the Betta's willingness to breed as well as helps with their health or something. That's what my LFS said anyway. Well, I've had this female Betta that had been building nests in her sorority tank. She got a bit rowdy and I just put her in her own tank because I just didn't want to risk the torn fins of the other girls to become worse off. But I've noticed that all my other females are also making bubble nests. My males will make the occasional one, but my girls seem to make new ones or expand their current ones and make them larger each day. this sucks because I wanted to breed my double tail female with my half moon male.
And no, these girls aren't male. They're female. They have the oviposter on their bellies.
But I'm kinda worried that they wouldn't want to mate with the boys if they already made their own bubble nests. I guess my fish are all a bunch of feminists. Any advice or thoughts on this, guys?
And if it matters they eat a lot, brine shrimp, betta min, betta bits, and frozen blood worms. Since they're pink and light colored, I think I can see their stomachs are full of eggs.
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