eBetta.com

The landlord told me I couldn’t have my fish, so I had to give them away. I’m sad now.

Whew! I have been a busy little blogger the past two days. But, I finally got my pictures off my phone and wanted to upload them while I have time… and before I forget! Sorry they are a bit blurry and not very high quality, but a camera phone is all I got! They are all pretty little veil tails. My next one will be a crowntail. But I can only keep so many tanks in my dorm and the boyfriends place… so that will not be in the near future I hope! I sure do hope that I do not get a vacant tank anytime soon. Two are from Walmart, one from petco and one from petsmart. I know these are not the most fantastic place to buy fishies, but I saved these little splendens and gave them nice homes. Enjoy!

Tusk: the baby and a hardcore arkansas razorback fish fan!

Apollo: with fin rot/fungus…but I think it is getting better now. He got it from being in one of those Walmart betta vase horrible creations. I saved him.

Nemo: with a wadded up dorsal fin

Indy: the oldest

Thanks for looking at my babies… who are now yawning and glaring at me. Time to turn out the lights!

Goodnight fellow betta lovers!

K

Can bettas have tank mates?

This question was asked by Cate in the comments section of my last post.

The answer is: yes, they can. But it may not be the best situation. But that is up to you to decide.

Here is some info and things to keep in mind:

First of all, you have to have a big enough tank to house both a betta and another fish or two or three. How big is your tank? Moreover, you need a filter and heater definitely if you want tank mates. Got those?

The #1 rule is: male bettas cannot go together. But a female and male can… but they may breed and you may have little fry you don’t want. Or if you have a female betta, sometimes 3 or more of them can live together. In addition, I was doing some research on betta tank buddies and you don’t want anything that will be aggressive and nip their beautiful fins—so generally no barbs and no sharks. From personal experience, I have a rainbow shark and he’s territorial and aggressive. Also, do not put your betta with anything brightly colored with big flashy fins. He may think its another betta. Never house a betta with a cool water fish, like goldfish.

In general, coryodras catfish, platies, clouds, danios, plecos, loaches, african dwarf frogs, snails and ghost shrimp are ok pals to have in the tank. Fyi—some people say the betta may eat the snail or shrimp. Just make sure you give the tank mates the specific kind of food they eat too!

Honestly, the temperament of your betta will determine if he gets along with his tank mates. If he is very aggressive, he may not like having friends in the tank. Make sure the tank has sufficient room for friends and plenty of hiding places… like plants and caves… so the fish can go hide if they are being picked on. All my bettas live separately and many people believe that it is best to keep them that way. But all in all, it is completely up to you! Bettas have been known to tolerate a tank mate.

The best thing you can do is try, but make sure to carefully observe your tank and be ready with an additional tank to bail someone out if things are getting aggressive in there!

Cate, did you have a specific fish in mind?

Hope this helps! If not, let us know what other questions you have and we’ll try to answer them!

K

What a pretty little betta…

This is a type of apple snail… a black mystery snail. I have one and he’s wonderful! He/she runs laps around the tank.

Hello all! I am a new writer on the betta blog! I am a college student that bought her first fish tank last January. In addition to a rainbow shark and huge black mystery snail, I caught the betta bug and have 4 babies now. I took pictures, but I haven’t uploaded them yet . Indy is dark blue and red, Apollo is off-white (and you can see his organs!!), Tusk is a little all red guy and Nemo is an orange and blackish guy with a gimp dorsal fin. Currently, Apollo is battling fin rot… and the fin rot is winning. I’m attacking it with tri sulfa. I’ll keep you posted. If anyone has a better solution, I’d love to hear it.

Well, the bettas are yawning and saying “it’s time for bed mom! Turn out the light!”.

Goodnight fellow betta bloggers.

K

This question comes from Tim (Good name).


hi there,
I have been trying to breed two crown tail bettas i have. I had the male and female in the same tank with a clear divider and kept them seperated until he made his bubble nest and she was full of eggs. I got them to mate and after i put her back into her side of the tank away from him. At first it seemed like he was guarding the nest but after a while i thought i saw him eating the eggs out of the nest. I thought i was wrong until i looked today and didnt see any eggs left in the nest, however he still guards it lik there are. Did i do something wrong? I was feeding him so i know hes not hungry, is the presence of the female in the other half of the tank have something to do with it? I want to try again but i dont want my female to get beat up for no reason. oh yeah…. will her fins grow back where they were tattered?- thanks, tim

Sounds like you a doing pretty good with breeding. Your betta may just be a bad father. Are you sure he is actually eating the eggs though? Because eggs are constantly falling from the bubble nest and the male has to bring the back to the nest in his mouth. Sometimes it just looks like he is eating them. This is what I recommend: Try again with the same pair. Try not to feed the male so much. And Take the female out of sight.


As for them getting torn up: It is very common and I have had betta’s lose eyes and fins and everything you can imagine when breeding. They are very agressive and it just happens. The fins usually don’t grow back as nice as they were. They might have a different coloration.

This question comes from Jennifer


I have two female bettas named Snowdrop and Vienna, I put them in seperate tanks because I have heard one would bully the other. I had them for almost a year now and brought two more females, Cinnamon and HotHot along with a bigger bowl because I thought they could be friends. But something went wrong. Cinnamon and HotHot are younger and smaller than Snowy and Vienna and as a result they get bullied and they won’t eat their pellets, even their tail fins are damaged. Right now Vienna and Snowdrop are sharing the same bowl while Cinnamon and HotHot are in seperate containers. I am thinking of returning HotHot to Petco in exchange for a female cocktail betta to be tankmates with Vienna and Snowdrop.

Most of the time betta fish do not get along with each other. Sometimes females will, but the only time I have seen this work out good is when they are sisters. If you still would like to try to make them get along you can try to add a lot of hiding places and rearrange some of the decorations you have in your tank. Hope this helps.

This question comes from Unoe

i jus bought my betta bout a few days ago and today i bought some neon tetra for the tank as well, i got three of them and they seemed fined until i went home a put them in the tank they all seemed to get along my betta left the others alone and no harm done, i went out and when i came back i noticed that i only saw two of the three neon tetras in the tank the third was at the bottom dead, is it possible that it died of disease or jus stress, because it kinda was the runt from the three,and he stayed on the top of the tank, and never went down he jus stayed there gulping, so i jus thought he was jus retarded, im jus concerned bout the other fish are they gone be ok, cuz when i took em out he wasnt stiff, he was jus limp, does that mean he died from something else and not that neon tetra disease i’ve heard about?

No, The neon tetra probably died because the betta killed it. Betta’s can sometimes get along with other fish for a short period of time. But a small fish like neon tetras becomes easy targets. I have seem people feed those kind of fish to betta’s before. It is just not a good mix. The guy at the pet store shouldn’t have told you to do that.

well flare died well because of bad water or age or food I feel bad because it was my fault

Question From Sue:

I have a male betta who suddenly has been showing some strange behaviour. Taz stays at the top of the bowl, snug to the edge, with no movement other than his mouth. Wont eat. Then every twenty mins he just goes beserk, racing around the bowl on the water top as if he is trying to get out. Litterally out of the water. I did find my cat drinking water from the bowl. Could this be stress, scared or what. His colouring is way off as well. Hope you can give me some advice. I have moved his bowl to a better place where kitties cant get near him.

Since I have had a betta get eaten by a cat I think that it is a big concern for fish. I have also had betta fish jump out of their tank before too, so that can happen also, they can jump very high sometimes. I think he is both scared and stressed, especially with the cat drinking from the water, good idea to move him away.

As for him losing color – it could be nothing.. but it could be what is called “Velvet” check out this page on bettatalk.com for more information on the diesease including treatment.

From bettatalk:

Velvet is hard to spot, but can be best spotted with a flashlight. Shine the light on the betta’s body: if it looks like it is covered with a fine gold or rust mist, then it has velvet. A betta with velvet will act sick, so look for clamped fins, scratching against rocks/gravel/tank, loss of appetite, loss of color etc…

My betta fish Bo is doing well! Except for her tail rot problem. If you didn’t read about that, please go down two entrys to “Tail Rot”. Bo is doing well besides that, she is making bubbles nests and being very active, and eating well. Just wanted to give everyone an update!

So sorry I haven’t written much. For the past 4 weeks I have been with out electricity. Really long story nothing to do with Beta’s. Needless to say I was quite worried about my Mickey because of his pump. At first things were sooting up a bit without the pump running, and he missed its bubbles. So I hooked up a bicycle pump to it and got some air moving a couple times a day. Then we hooked up battery power to his tank so that he can have his water moving and bubbles. It can’t run all the time but when I do run it, he has been one happy fish. Of course I’m keeping a eye on him while we are working through this situation.

Help! My betta fish Flo died, (don’t know why, I think just because of old age) so I got a new betta. He looks almost exactly the same but a little smaller. His name is Bo. He was fine for a while, but then all of a sudden his tail looked like it was just decreasing, and chunks of it were falling off. It was like a zig zag, it just looked like it was rotting. So I looked it up online and found a thing called tail rot. We thought that was it, so we called the store where I got my betta. The store owner said that she had never heard of tail rot on betta’s before, and she thinks it was because of my plant. So we took the plant out, but it still isn’t getting any better! I clean her tank every two days, and I don’t use soap. Does anyone know what’s wrong?????????

P.S. Sorry I haven’t written in a while. I have been so busy! And I just got a new computer and I lost the betta website. Sorry!

Hey fish lovers! I just found a great online game that free and you don’t have to download it! It’s called fish tycoon…you can feed, breed, and sell your fish! wastes a good amount of time and teaches you a few things.

http://www.games.com/game/fish-tycoon/

Here is a really cool betta fish tattoo with Chinese wording that translates into “bravery; never give up spirit”.

Thanks for sending me this Jay!

My Crowntail Freddy died a few nights back. I don’t know why….I’m assuming he was just sick. He was sickly for awhile…Not eating and such. Well he’s in a better place now…

P.S. Sorry I haven’t had much to add lately, I’m just getting settled here in Kent and getting ready to go to College.