Beta fish. What am I doing wrong?

[Tinkim]

I've had a betta for... a year and a half now. Well, I was given two by DBF, but we like to say that "Red" got his life force sucked out by "Blue". (Blue developed a small red tint shortly after Red died ).

Oh and no, we didn't have them in the same bowl

Anyway, Blue has been alive and well since June of 2004. I'm the worst pet owner ever (haven't even had a plant that could live through my wrath) and this sucker is still alive! Through vacations, two weeks without food, etc.

I would like to believe your little betta may have been sick before you got him Let's hope. [oops, reread the post and it said you got two... ]

Here's what I do: I have a small fish bowl, and I drop in three drops of Ammonia Chloramine Eliminator, and fill it with tap water (not warm, not cold- try to get as close to room temp as possible). I let it sit for a minute before dropping old Blue in (we keep him in an old Taco Bell cup during the cleaning). I usually feed him about 8 pellets of Aqua Culture brand Betta pellet food once a day (although the bottle says twice a day). And sometimes I forget too. He's not too picky.

I change the water whenever it looks gross.

A woman I met who sold Bettas at a flea market once told me that if they are near a draft in the winter they can get pneumonia. They have lungs and breath at the top of the water, so if the air is too cold, they can die.

Goodluck if you get another one.

I do believe we are long lost sisters. I have only one house plant that has survived (because it is low maintenance) and my DD's beta fish lived for two years. I did feed him every day (most of the time) and changed the water when it was gross. In their natural environment they live in filth Anyway I took care of DD's fish the same way you did and he lived a pretty long life for a beta fish I think especially since everyone else we knew that had one died within a matter of hours or at most a week. I didn't think that fish was ever going to die! I kept hearing about everyone else's dying and I thought ours would too but he lived much longer than I thought he would. Not that I wanted him to die but I took care of him and cleaned his bowl

 

[clutter]

Your beta's eat the pellets? My dd's late Sky (blue, we're a wee bit more original...) used to grab them, then spit them out! We ended up feeding her (him?) bloodworms. (S)he died right before christmas, after a year. I used spring water, but changed from the beta water conditioner to the stress drops. She stopped eating and died a little after that. Now my dd has Violet (yes she's purple, we're not THAT original) who's doing well. But she almost picked another one that looked kind of sickly. So we bought him too (Ghost), but he died today after a week. He never did eat, and didn't move much.

Gonna get some of that Betta-Fix.

 

[Disney Ontario]

We also got a Beta Fish for our DD's birthday on the 26. It died new years eve. She then went to another place and picked out a frilled Beta. Well she was concerned that he wasn't eating so so took it over to her boyfriend's home.- to meet his Beta and he has the same fish bowl too. Well I guess its doing great. But I better watch out. His parents might start charging rent for both my daughter and her fish.

 

[Aneille]

This is just information for those using Tap water and letting it sit to remove chlorine. If your tap water has chloramine in it as well (many muncipalaties use this) then it will not be removed by letting your water sit and it is bad for your fish.

You need to use a water treatment that removes chlorine and chloramine if thats the case.

 

[Aneille]

Oh and I thought of something else.

When you clean out your fish bowl you should probably turkey baste the waste up as best you can and then only replace some of the water not all of it at once.

Fish are sensitive to water changes such as pH, temp, etc change less water more frequently.

Otherwise if you change a large amount at once the fish gets a bigger shock.

But the biggest factor I think is getting a healthy beta fish out of a pet store. They always look pretty rough to me. I've had 2. One was adopted and he was already old and I had him 6 months. Another I had for little over a year I think. That guy even travelled from CA to MA in a jar with me on the plane. People sure did look at me funny!

 

[Nicolepa]

I've never had beta's but I did go thru several goldfish. We went thru 3 in less than a week. I gave up and told dd no more. A few weeks later she begged for another one so I went to get her one and the petstore had about 1/2 their tanks empty. I'm pretty sure most of their fish were sick. This was at Petco. I went to Petsmart and the fish there just looked a lot better. They were more active etc. They were a lot more expensive, but we have had them 14 months now and they are huge.

So I would try a different pet store and see if that helps. Petsmart they were so much more informative about caring for them etc.

 

[kristen821]

I didn't read all the post so somebody may have posted this, but try buying it from a different store. Maybe you are getting sick fish.

 

[Jennifer S]

The fish were from two different stores- one was a gift and the second we replaced. I guess I'll have tow find a third- there is a Petsmart not far. The 2nd was Petco.

Funny about spitting out the pellets this fish did that too. Maybe I'll try the flakes. Thanks all for your thoughts. We are going to give it one more try. We will get him this weekend. Noah #3

 

[BeNJeNWaFFLe]

My beta was named Fish, so I am less original than all of you!

I bought a beta while in college just because we weren't allowed to have pets in the dorm. Yeah I was a rebel. He lived for about 2 years! I couldn't even keep a goldfish for that long. I would clean his bowl about once a week. I used tap water and would let it sit for at least a week before I used it. I would also add special salt pellets to the water and a stress reliever. He seemed to do fine with that. I fed him the flakes instead of the pellets. I tried to feed him everyday but there were times I forgot. He also took many car rides home for breaks (winter and spring) and then came home with me over the summer. My poor Fish only died once my mom got her hands on him while I was on vacation.

Maybe you are getting sick fish? Also try tap water. I used the funky water in Brooklyn and had no problems. Man, thinking about it, I was quite cruel to my rebel Fish.

 

[experiment626mom]

Tiggerlover - I too have a new Betta, and on doing some research on the little guy, I found out that they are carnivours and should be fed 1-2 times a day. Mostly freeze dried or frozen food. (Live food is best, but I'm having a hard time finding live brine shrimp in my area) Water should be around 75 - 80 degrees and out of direct sunlight. I used bottled water the first time, but when his tank got murky I used tap water and he seems a whole lot happier in that. He also has a plant with some big aquarium rocks for him to hide around. I'm new to this kind of fish so I might be the blind leading the blind here


Good Luck!!

 

[Aneille]

Tiggerlover - I too have a new Betta, and on doing some research on the little guy, I found out that they are carnivours and should be fed 1-2 times a day. Mostly freeze dried or frozen food. (Live food is best, but I'm having a hard time finding live brine shrimp in my area) Water should be around 75 - 80 degrees and out of direct sunlight. I used bottled water the first time, but when his tank got murky I used tap water and he seems a whole lot happier in that. He also has a plant with some big aquarium rocks for him to hide around. I'm new to this kind of fish so I might be the blind leading the blind here


Good Luck!!

A tip for trying to find live brine is try finding a reef/marine only store. They usually will have live food and a huge selection of frozen food that is not available at chain stores like Petsmart.

I looked up the local reef group in Illinois and I found their website. They have a list of reef/marine stores to call. I am sure one of them if near you has live brine sometimes. I would be surprised if they don't.

http://www.cimaonline.us/local_stores.htm

 

[experiment626mom]

A tip for trying to find live brine is try finding a reef/marine only store. They usually will have live food and a huge selection of frozen food that is not available at chain stores like Petsmart.

I looked up the local reef group in Illinois and I found their website. They have a list of reef/marine stores to call. I am sure one of them if near you has live brine sometimes. I would be surprised if they don't.

http://www.cimaonline.us/local_stores.htm

Hey thanks!! Turns out there's a shop by my MIL's that I never knew was there.