I finally got my betta.

[jessicagray]

After much research I finally found the perfect 1.5 gallon tank from Tetra with a filter. In my tank I have a couple fake plants and three small java ferns, a fake coral rock thing for my betta to swim around and through, a fake frog and some large natural-colored gravel.

I also had bought three ghost shrimp, and a small mystery snail to keep my betta company, however when I came back to work this morning, two of the shrimp and the tiny snail were dead, all neatly arranged in the corner of the tank. I've since removed the corpses, but he has occassionally gone back to the corpse site to stare at it as if to wonder where his victims went to. Hmm!

One ghost shrimp remains alive, he was the biggest of the three.

I am thinking that either the betta doesn't want any company at all, or that he just doesn't like small things. I do like snails so I was thinking of maybe just buying another, though bigger snail?

I also got some testing strips and the ph level looks a little high, so I'm going to go and get some phdown. I was also thinking of getting some aquarium salt and aquasol, as another website recommended that for betta's to prevent disease. What do you guys think?


Other than the unfortunate demise of the shrimp and snail, I think I did okay so far. I rinsed everything off before putting it in the tank, rinsed the gravel 3 times until the rinse water ran clear, put in the aquasafe, I floated the original bag in the tank and gradually added the tank water to the bag water within about 2 hours before putting my betta in, and yesterday I fed him about 3 betta bites which he was very enthusiastic about. He seems content so far, he's been doing a lot of investigating, and sometimes he'll take a break and stare into a corner for a minute, which looks weird to me, but maybe that's normal resting behavior? Then he'll just start swimming around again.

How do you think I'm doing so far? Anything else I do for my yet unnamed betta?

[Drumachine09]

Sounds like you are doing good. Tankmates with bettas are usually hit-or-miss. Some will accept tankmates, others will try to eat them. I would try it one more time, and if he kill those, then you know he is the latter of the two.



Can you post a pic? It sounds interesting.

[GoldLenny]

I wouldn't use pHdown type products. You need to establish your tap water baseline. See my current blog article. Quite often, the pH will go down in an aquarium because of the ecology of the tank.

[jessicagray]

I'll post a pic as soon as I can! My Betta, I've forgotten to mention, is my work buddy! He sits here on the desk with me (which is why the biggest I could do was 1.5gal!) so I'm pretty much at his side about 9 hours a day. I'm still thinking of a name... something that means "beautiful killer" or "ghost killer" seems appropriate! I'm actually at work very early today, and I was able to see him sleeping, totally motionless hovering above the gravel. As soon as I sat down though he woke up and started moving around.

So, I bought phdown, aquarisol and aquarium salt yesterday. I've been very very gradually adding it in by taking a bottle of room temp spring water (provided by my employer, we always have unlimited supply of 16oz spring water bottles.. bwaha), adding a couple drops of aquasafe, a drop of aquarisol, about 7 granules of the salt and a drop of phdown. Then I shook the bottle up so the salt dissolved, and then added about a third of the bottle to the tank water yesterday, and I just did another third today, and tomorrow will be another third. So far my routine is to run the filter when I'm at work and unplug it when I go home, which should be okay. I read info that betta's are supposedly not fans of filters, but mine sees okay with it and enjoys the bubbles. At night I give him a break from the noise by turning it off, and also I don't feel comfortable letting it run here when no one's around a night.

So far the other ghost shrimp is still alive. Betta still looks happy. I just gave him one betta bite and will give him another one in a few hours, then maybe one more before I leave. I feel like I'm underfeeding him because he always wants more! But I'm trying hard to stick to 2-4 betta bites a day.

So it's been about 2 days since I first got him. I've been testing the water with strips, which I have found to be a bit obscure in their readings. So far nitries look like around .15-.2 (hard to tell), chlorine looks clear, the water looks a little hard (between 120 and 250, maybe 200), and ph is still looking high, near 7.8- 8?? It's difficult matching up the colors. I only have 2 strips left, so when I use those up I'm switching to another testing method.

Sooo now I'm ready to read up some more on water changing and aquarium cleaning. I researched a bit before buying my fish, but now I'd really like to narrow down a routine. What do you think would work best? Do I need to do FWCs or only PWCs? and how often? I was thinking maybe doing PWC's 1-2 times a week, though I'm not sure of the best method. Do you just simply remove some of the old water and put in new treated water? Could I stick in empty water bottles and fill them up, then pour in two bottles of fresh? And then do a FWC every.. 2 weeks? or a month? I'm not sure how often I should change the water since I do have a filter and a couple java ferns. Plus, I don't really want to unplug my aquarium and carry the whole thing down my office building to the kitchen to do a FWC any more than I have to to keep betta healthy! Also, do I need to buy any of those aquarium scrub brushes? I've even seen 'wipes' for cleaning the glass inside and out.

[kimmers318]

Sounds like you have a really cute desk set up for yourself, but I imagine the problem you had with your losses may have had to do with not having cycled the tank. Have you done any reading on cycling? If not, I suggest you read up on it so you know more about where I am coming from here.
In a quick explanation, clean water in an aquarium is not ready to handle fish and food waste. Over time the waste will become a toxic substance called ammonia (think of what urine basically is) and a bacteria will grow to destroy the ammonia. Once it destroys the ammonia you will get nitrites in there and another bacteria will come along to destroy the nitrite and turn it into nitrates. Nitrates are only removed by your water changes (unless you have a nicely properly planted aquarium, plants will use alot of it). During this process, ammonia and nitrites are toxic to fish, nitrites less so. Not having a stabilized aquarium could very easily have killed the ghost shrimp and snail, especially if they were weak. Since ghost shrimp are basically raised as feeders they aren't always that strong.
You showed a nitrite reading and this is part of the cycling process. Some fish will handle it better than others, and not knowing your ammonia readings make it harder to see where you stand. Fishless cycling is the way to go to avoid subjecting your fish to the toxins that occur during cycling.
Now that you already have fish I suggest you find yourself a liquid test kit to keep an eye on ammonia, nitrites and nitrates and you can do water changes accordingly to keep them low/zero until the cycle is done. Unfortunately this method lengthens the cycling process. If you know anyone who has a well established aquarium you can get some filter gunk or used gravel to add to your tank which will contain the live beneficial bacteria you want to add to your tank. You can also buy a product called bio spira, but with that small of a tank you would be buying way too much and unless you plan on setting up other aquariums in the near future, most of it would go to waste.
As for ph.....don't mess with it, especially now, wait until your aquarium is stable and thru it's cycle before making a decision on that, and if you still want to lower it do some research. I personally wouldn't recommend lowering your ph with products because it can cause ph swings which are much harder on the fish than adapting to the current water. Most fish these days are bred, not wild caught, and have adapted to water conditions most likely not from their natural habitat. PH is a very hard thing to stabilize and it has a tendency to swing around alot when you mess with it.
As for using the spring water, is that what you filled the tank with? Be cautious using bottled waters as they can be "purified" to remove minerals and such that the fish actually need. People that have fish that need very specialized water will use purified water that they buffer themselves by adding the necessary nutrients and minerals to it.
Okay, last but not least, your filter.....don't ever turn it off. Your filter media will grow loads of that good bacteria I talked about earlier. In order to stay alive the good bacteria needs food (waste), oxygen and water. If your filter media dries out, or doesn't have the water flowing over/thru it and giving it oxygenated water it will die. A well established aquarium can usually handle a power outage of several hours, but your new aquarium is going to go haywire having the filter turned off every night. If you are concerned about the filters water flow use something to divert or slow down the water as it flows back into the tank. My betta though, is frequently seen resting in the plant I have directly under the water flow, so apparently the water doesn't bother him.

[jessicagray]

I read that if I put a java plant in the tank water, no cycling would be needed with the tank of my size. Also, I think the betta was what killed the other shrimp and snail, as the shrimp's head was ah nibbled upon and seperated from the body, and they were both piled neatly together. The betta also chases the other shrimp around from time to time, nipping at it and then leaving it alone, I guess just to keep him in check and let him know who's boss.

The tank water I filled was mostly tap, with about 12 oz or so of bottled spring water "purified by limestone", though I doubt that really means anything. Tomorrow I will probably get a better testing kit that include ammonia, so I should know more then!

The filter/pump I cannot leave on at night when nobody's here, as there is so much sensitive electrical equipment, if something should ever happen, no one would be around. I have heard many people say they have no pump at all and they say it's fine. Although, when the pump is off, I do see that the filter still sits in water, so it should still grow some bacteria I think..

[GoldLenny]

So, I bought phdown, aquarisol and aquarium salt yesterday. I've been very very gradually adding it in by taking a bottle of room temp spring water (provided by my employer, we always have unlimited supply of 16oz spring water bottles.. bwaha), adding a couple drops of aquasafe, a drop of aquarisol, about 7 granules of the salt and a drop of phdown. Then I shook the bottle up so the salt dissolved, and then added about a third of the bottle to the tank water yesterday, and I just did another third today, and tomorrow will be another third. So far my routine is to run the filter when I'm at work and unplug it when I go home, which should be okay. I read info that betta's are supposedly not fans of filters, but mine sees okay with it and enjoys the bubbles. At night I give him a break from the noise by turning it off, and also I don't feel comfortable letting it run here when no one's around a night.
Aquarisol is a medication. I'm not sure you should be using it. I didn't see anything in your first post where your fish is sick. It's not good to dose most medications as a preventative measure in your main tank (although they will tell you to do it to sell more product). This will cause bacteria or the fish to become immune or resistant to the medication so the bacteria are harder to kill if your fish actually get infected. Just use the aquasafe when using tap water. You probably don't need it when you use the bottled water since it should not have any chlorine/chloramine or heavy metals in it.

Is your filter an internal filter that is inside the "tank" under the water? If not, you should not turn the filter off at night. Even with an internal filter, it's better to not turn it off. This causes your nitrifying bacteria (the good ones that take care of ammonia/nitrites) to die off when the filter is not running. This will cause you constant ammonia/nitrite issues which is not healthy for your fish/shrimp.

I still don't think you should be using the pH down until you know more about your source water. If you will be using the bottled spring water and it's the same brand all of the time, just do some research on it to make sure it's actually spring water and not distilled water. Water companies have tricky marketing gimicks where they can have "spring" in the name when it's not actually from a spring. Contact the bottle water company and ask for a MSDS or if you post the brand name and info here, I'll find it for you.

What is your pH? Most bottled waters are going to have a pH in the 7'ish range which is fine for you betta and you would not have to use any pH altering chemicals in your tank. These chemicals are usually not needed for 90% of fish and only fish that require extremely low or high pH should have their water altered... and then there are better (and cheaper) ways to do it other than bottled chemicals. If you are going to use the bottled water all of the time, which isn't a bad thing, then stick to that regimen. Don't go back and forth from the tap water to the bottled water as the two waters likely have drastic water parameter differences and altering your water too much, too fast, is not good for the fish.


So far the other ghost shrimp is still alive. Betta still looks happy. I just gave him one betta bite and will give him another one in a few hours, then maybe one more before I leave. I feel like I'm underfeeding him because he always wants more! But I'm trying hard to stick to 2-4 betta bites a day.
Bettas are carnivores so it won't be long before the other ghost shrimp becomes a betta-snack. Maybe if your tank had lots of plants like java moss where the shrimp could hide, it might survive but it probably won't otherwise. There are exceptions to the rule though. If you want a tank mate for the betta, I've read that many people were successful with keeping Apple/Mystery snails with them. Please note that these snails should get really big (bigger than a golf ball) so you may need a bigger home tank eventually so you can move the BIG snail. You could use your Betta tank as a grow out tank for the small snails.


So it's been about 2 days since I first got him. I've been testing the water with strips, which I have found to be a bit obscure in their readings. So far nitries look like around .15-.2 (hard to tell), chlorine looks clear, the water looks a little hard (between 120 and 250, maybe 200), and ph is still looking high, near 7.8- 8?? It's difficult matching up the colors. I only have 2 strips left, so when I use those up I'm switching to another testing method.
OK. You finally gave us the pH level. :19: (Just kidding... but it does help to have numbers.) With the hard water you have, using the pH down will not help. It will change the pH temporarily when you dose the tank but then the buffers in your hard water will change it back to the higher pH. As your tank matures and your nitrifying bacteria (and other bacteria) grows in the tank, they will utilize many of the minerals in your hard water and it will slowly become less hard and then the pH will slowly lower on its own. I don't think it's a problem at that level. Bettas can live in pH between 6-8 and I really think you should allow your tank to mature properly without using all of the chemicals that the stores try to sell. (Nature doesn't dump a bunch of chemicals into lakes and rivers). Here is my blog article http://goldlenny.blogspot.com/2007/05/find-your-tap-source-water-baseline.html on establishing your tap/source water baseline but it would be better to do this test after you get a good master test kit.

Also, when you run out of the dip sticks, you should purchase a good master test kit using the test tubes and drops as the dip sticks are notoriously inaccurate. They are OK for a quick check but not for accurate and precise readings. Here is my blog article on various master test kits. http://goldlenny.blogspot.com/2007/03/everyone-needs-decent-master-test-kit.html I have the API Master Test Kit and the Tetra-Laborette Master Test Kit and as long as you get the API kit that has the ammonia, nitrite, pH (high and low), KH and GH, you will be in good shape but you would have to buy the separate nitrate test kit. The API kit includes larger bottles of drops so it lasts well over a year even with weekly or more frequent testing. The T-L test kit has small bottles of drops but still should last nearly a year with regular testing.


Sooo now I'm ready to read up some more on water changing and aquarium cleaning. I researched a bit before buying my fish, but now I'd really like to narrow down a routine. What do you think would work best? Do I need to do FWCs or only PWCs? and how often? I was thinking maybe doing PWC's 1-2 times a week, though I'm not sure of the best method. Do you just simply remove some of the old water and put in new treated water? Could I stick in empty water bottles and fill them up, then pour in two bottles of fresh? And then do a FWC every.. 2 weeks? or a month? I'm not sure how often I should change the water since I do have a filter and a couple java ferns. Plus, I don't really want to unplug my aquarium and carry the whole thing down my office building to the kitchen to do a FWC any more than I have to to keep betta healthy! Also, do I need to buy any of those aquarium scrub brushes? I've even seen 'wipes' for cleaning the glass inside and out.
Since you have a filter, you should only be doing weekly 25% PWC's (partial water change). It's never good to do 100% WC's since they can change the water parameters too much, too fast and cause shock issues to the fish. Doing a weekly 25% PWC should be fine in your case. There's less chance of changing the temperature or water chemistry too much with a 25% PWC. Since you have access to the free clean water, you could also do a couple of 1-2 bottle changes once or twice a week by dipping empty bottles in (just make sure the bottles labels don't have any kind of glue or dye that would come off in your tank... or it might be better to get a plastic measuring cup at the dollar store to be used strictly for your fish tank to avoid contamination) and then once a week, when you vacuum the bottom/gravel, do the 25%-33% PWC. Get a gravel vacuum (siphon) and you would need at least a small bucket (preferably one ONLY for your fish and you could use it to store all your fish stuff when not using it for the weekly PWC. It's important to vacuum your gravel on a regular basis to remove any uneaten food and fish/snail poop as it will build up and becomes a haven for bad bacteria or parasites if left in the gravel. Remember to be consistent with your water source. If you are going to use the bottled water, then stick with it. If you are going to use the tap water, stick with it. This way the fish won't constantly be trying to acclimate to drastically changing water.

[jessicagray]

Today's update..

I just did a 35% PWC using a siphon that was a PITA. Before I changed the water, I used a master test kit and found that the ph was 7.6, ammonia .25, nitrite .25, and nitrate about 8-9ish. I took out all the fake plants and added in a few more small java ferns to help with any nitrite issues. I was also looking for a very small heater but could not find one that was small enough for my tank. When I came in this morning the water temp was 70F, so I was thinking I should try to warm it up a little, but I can't seem to find the heater I'd need. I couldn't find any driftwood that was small enough as well. I did buy some freeze-dried bloodworms and gave my betta one of those, which he loved. In the new water I put in some of the dechlorinator and a few granules of aquarium salt, but no phdown or aquarisol. I'm not sure yet about the aquarisol -- I read that it's very good to use preventatively on bettatalk.com, but then some people here say to not use it.

I've decided to just use tap water, since that's what the LFS uses. The filter I have is a Tetra Whisper that sits underwater in the tank. Who knew a $4 fish would end up costing $100 in supplies?

[GoldLenny]

I don't like the idea of using meds as a preventative as it can lead to resistant strains of bacteria/parasites. There is a growing trend in the goldfish trade of treating all newly purchased goldfish with Praziquantel for the common gill fluke issue that is prevalent in goldfish. I just hope we don't create a gill fluke that becomes resistant to the medicine. This happens when someone does not use a full dose and some of the parasites/bacteria survive the dosing and they build up an immunity/resistance to the drug. I'm sure if everyone used it properly and made sure it killed everything it was suppose to kill, then this would not happen... but we know some folks aren't going to follow the directions properly.

[jessicagray]

Hmmm, I can dig that, I'm pretty probiotic myself and do everything I can to not take antibiotics. Maybe I'll just keep it around in case he starts to look sick. But the salt is okay to give him steadily though, right, and it will help prevent disease?

I'm still at work and will be leaving soon... he'll be by himself this weekend.. but he should be okay, we'll turn the AC tem up so it shouldn't be too cool in here. I still feel nervous about leaving him alone though, but I'm sure he'll be alright since I just did a pwc and I fed him a little extra.. about 4 betta bites total and two bloodworms total. I ran the filter all day today and just turned it off since he seemed to be getting annoyed with it. When the filter/pump is off, there is still water in there, so bacteria should grow.

As soon as I turned off the pump, he started to build a bubble nest! He's still doing it. He doesn't like me hovering when he does, if I get up to look closer he'll stop. It's very small, but I'll take it as a good sign. I've also noticed today that he's been moving his head from side to side a lot, as if he's looking for something. Not sure what that's about.

I think I found a small enough heater on walmart's website, so over the weekend I'll go ahead and pick that up to put in there on Monday.

[Rue]

1.5 gallons is VERY small as far as volume goes...the less you mess with water the better off you'll be...

...if you always use the same water for WCs and stick to a regular routine you'll be much better off.

Your water quality isn't very good if you're getting measurable readings of ammonia and nitrite...but those WCs will help with that. I'd do at least 2 5-=75% WCs a week and see how it goes.

Don't mess with the pH.

[jessicagray]

Pictures...

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y220/jesspffbt/DSCN2596.jpg
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y220/jesspffbt/DSCN2585.jpg
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y220/jesspffbt/DSCN2572.jpg
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y220/jesspffbt/DSCN2567.jpg

[Severus]

Great looking betta! i love his tank

[bscman]

Betta's can go for quite some time without food (weeks even) so don't over-feed him on friday before the weekend.

Also, betta's will eat and eat and will not stop. They will eat themselves to death if given the opportunity. 4 betta pellets and 2 freeze dried blood worms is too much for one day, IMO.
He will be just find on monday, with 2 days off from feed.

I feed mine 1 pellet in the morning and one in the evening. Nothing more.
Occasionally I'd subsitute a pellet for another type of food...variation is good :ezpi_wink1: