BellaOnline Forums Home and Garden Fish Fish Journal - BETTAS ONLY

Denise,

I use an ear bulb syringe to suction the nasties off the bottom, either by making the water circulate squirting tank water in and out, or just going right to the bottom with the tip. I also have an otocinclus in the tank with most of my bettas. They keep down the algae, and they're so ugly they're cute.

Hi Denise. Yes, three years is old age for bettas, outside of lab conditions! You did good. But it's good to completely change the water for these guys, because we don't cycle betta tanks. If you check out the thread at the top of this forum there is sooo much great info to get you up to speed on how most of us clean our tanks and etc. keep us updated about how things are going when you get a new betta!! <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

thanks for the info everyone! I do have a question/problem with our new guy "swimmer" as my son has named him. I use Hikari betta bio-gold food. Swimmer can grab the pellet easily and I see him working hard to "chew" it, but then it just pops back out of his mouth. He hasn't gotten one completely down yet (but he keeps trying).

He is smaller than our other bettas, so I don't know if a) the pellets are too big for him; b)he is used to a different kind of food and it will just take him a bit to figure this food out; or c) something is wrong with him. He doesn't have any visible problems (white patches, etc...).

Has anyone dealt with this, and what do you suggest? I can keep trying to feed him this, but if he can't keep it down then in a few days I will need to try other food, I guess.

Thanks!
Denise

Nannynan,

What is an otocinclus? i thought you couldn't put anything in a bowl with a betta or they would kill it (obviously that is not the case). My bowls were turning really green and I thought I was doing something wrong, but then the petshop people said it was because the bowls had too much light (living in So. California can do that I guess!). So I have tried to find a "darker" spot to keep them so they don't get any direct light.

Denise

deniscb, wow! you're doin' a great job for having a betta around for 3 years or more!! i hope my two boys will stay with me that long, we've gotten quite fond of them. even my friends that come over can't help themselves to a few betta kisses! <img src="/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

anyways, otocinclus (either the dwarf or giant) are cute little sucker fish. they kinda have a leopardish colouring and stiff, short fins. their skin reminds me of sharks as it is a bit rough. but they are cute and great for algae. thought they eat more than just algae, i found they do not like hair algae.

getting a snail helps ALOT too. just make sure you get the proper kind of snail. an apple snail from the pomacea bridgesii family, or a black "mystery" snail. please remember that most fish store people don't really know which is wich. a great site to go to for help in identifying is... www.applesnail.net I bought one thinking it was a golden apple snail (pomacea bridgesii) but, it turned out to be a pomacea canaliculata (channel snail). these eat EVERYTHING, including fish. he's now in his own seperate tank.

and welcome to the forum!

EMG:
can i have one of those pretty green/bronze girls you have there?!!! i think those are pretty cool. also, are they steels or craowntails or just veiltail girls? i vaguely remember wha you hatched out. <img src="/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" />

oh yeah i almost forgot. denisecb,
about having the bowl in the sunlight...i have one of my tanks in the window sill myself. the plants in the tank love it, however, it does get hot in these SoCal summers. so what i do is take a nice peice of paper and prop it up against the window. still has a lighted effect and the tank stays a nice temp around 83F. i like to get fancy and try different papers or let only a sliver of direct sun into the tank. fish don't mind, though one of mine like to have a small window to view the outside world. <img src="/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

Mel, I'd love to send you some! I have lots..lol
Thing is, I'm not really sure WHAT color these girls are..When they are near the other females, their bodies are pale yellowish with clear fins, if you shine a flashlight on them at that time thier fins look very pale irredescent greenish. When I put them near a male, thier bodies get dark and when I shine a light on them at that time they look...I'm not sure what color!! <img src="/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" /> It's really very odd, but I can send you some if you like...but I think I would wait till the weather cools down..even though I could put a cold pack in the packaging. Also, I've never shipped fish so I'm not sure if they would make the trip ok..but I'm willing to try.

Mel, about those tails....

None of the fry seemt to have that beautiful doubleray crowntail that their dad had. I have some males with a combtail effect and some that look like a sort of delta tail, but not sure about that. I have some really nice fantails with nice coloring which I have set aside as the best. Here's a link to a pic of the one I feel is the best...

http://www.bellaonline.com/misc/rateme/photos/photo1982.jpg

He has a sort of triangular tail...it goes to a point in the middle.

Of the females however..most seem to have crowntails, some even a nice doubleray. But I'm not yet sure if they could be considered 'true' crowntails..they would have to grow out a bit more to be sure.

Gee Mel...I could email you with some pictures of some of the better fry. I'll try to get a good picture of one of the greenish/bronze females...if that's really the color they are, it's so hard to tell... <img src="/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" /> Let me know. <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

sounds great EMG! i think i only want one girl, but considering two just for company. if you could, i would like to see a pic of the colours in both pales and darks. if you can't, don't sweat it.

i actually bought 2 tiny girls from PetCo several weeks ago. they were the only one's left and one had a very bad case of fungus on the side of her face. when i got them home, i made a nice comfy tank for the two. sadly though, they didn't get past the second night.