Fish Lovers 3.0 [new poll]

[Keletheryl]

So before you go all "bettas are supposed to live alone" on me, this fish is pretty special. He's been housed with corys, cream-coloured platy, panda tetras... And he's been 100% fine with them. Never flared, never chased them, would eat along side them like no problem.
However, we recently introduced a Swordtail male and female. He is CONSTANTLY flaring at the female, and is now starting to flare at the cream coloured platy that he originally had no problem with. He still ignores all the other ones. He mostly focuses and flares at the female swordtail.
He has not attacked her, just flares at her and then swims away, flares and swims away. Kind of like breeding behaviour, but not quite. Still seems aggressive, but he's not attacking.

Anybody know why he's targeting just the female, and how/if we can stop it?
She's bright orange with black spots, and he's a red and white dumbo.

[PeachFuzz]

So before you go all "bettas are supposed to live alone" on me, this fish is pretty special. He's been housed with corys, cream-coloured platy, panda tetras... And he's been 100% fine with them. Never flared, never chased them, would eat along side them like no problem.
However, we recently introduced a Swordtail male and female. He is CONSTANTLY flaring at the female, and is now starting to flare at the cream coloured platy that he originally had no problem with. He still ignores all the other ones. He mostly focuses and flares at the female swordtail.
He has not attacked her, just flares at her and then swims away, flares and swims away. Kind of like breeding behaviour, but not quite. Still seems aggressive, but he's not attacking.

Anybody know why he's targeting just the female, and how/if we can stop it?
She's bright orange with black spots, and he's a red and white dumbo.

First off, I've been housing bettas in community tanks for years so if anyone tells you all bettas must be kept alone ignore them c;

Is the female swordtail larger than the male? Maybe he finds her size threatening? It's all I can think of.

[Keletheryl]

No, she's a bit smaller than him. The cream coloured molly is much bigger than him and he hasnt had a problem with him up until the female swordtail was introduced.

[Dia.]

#haven'tbeenhereinawhile
Since the tank was already established for a while (I assume) and you added the newcomers, is it possible that your betta's "kingdom" has been disrupted? Maybe he's weirded out that he has new company and he needs to let them know who's boss.
I've never added new fish to a tank that has a betta residing in it already. I've only ever added bettas to a community tank.

[Rhaegal.]

Hi so I have a... Sort of complicated problem?
I have a betta fish named Mufasa, he's a blue-green dragonscale crowntail and he lives in a 3 gallon tank with a filter and a heater. A little less than a month ago he had some problems with the Velvet parasite, but he recovered after three days and he was fine for about a week...
Though I think it may have started another problem. At the time, he wasn't eating at all, so I would give him small sprinkles of food to test and see if he'd be willing to swim up and eat and he didn't until two days later, and I feel like this excess of food may have caused fin rot... But I don't think it'd be able to get as severe as it is with two weeks.
Some background information about my tank-care: I change 25% or more of the water every week (on Fridays to be exact) and I completely rinse out, wipe down everything and change all the water on the last Friday every month. I've never had any sort of problem with ripped fins before, and I did have a plastic plant in but the leaves were soft and curved, not pointy.
The week he was recovering, Mufasa lost a huge chunk of his back fin... I'd say 60% or more? and the top of his dorsal fins were all chewed up Here's what it looked like before, after. At which point I took out the plant in case that was part of the problem. And then I woke up one day and he had stress lines, which sometimes he gets faint ones if he's hungry, so I fed him, he ate and his color didn't return. I changed some of the water and things kept continuing like that.
Then four days ago he was laying at the bottom of the tank and he wouldn't get up unless you walked by the tank. He seemed to be "gasping" for air. I bought some aquarium salt and I completely cleaned out his tank but it's still not getting better. Earlier today he wasn't even willing to swim with his back tail fins at all, but he was able to keep himself afloat this evening. It was so bad I was completely expecting to come home to a dead fish while I was at work today. I completely changed his water and put in more aquarium salt, changed the filter cartridge. I honestly have no idea what it is??
Some other weird behaviors he's shown these last few days: random, sporadic bursts of swimming, "gasping" for breath at the bottom of the tank, he's swam headfirst into his rocks a few times, his color is completely faded, he's fins are clamped, not showing any interest in food.

Any and all help/advice would be gr8ly appreciated :>

[Hime]

@Floofems<3: With just 10 gal you can definetly go for cheaper and more simple CO2 system. ^^ There are ready made kits for small/nano tanks that have disposable CO2 bottle, at least Tropica and Tetra make such. Small tank kits like that cost maybe 10-30 euros, but down side of course is you need to buy new CO2 bottle for them when one empties out, and one bottle lasts about 1-2 months depending on the tank size.
Then for the more DIY side, there are actually kits that include all needed pieces and you just add the fermentation ingredients to the bottle given(commonly dry yeast, sugar and water, sometimes also gelatin which slows and stablises the reaction some).
Couple examples by JBL:
https://www.jbl.de/?lang=en&mod=products&func=detail&id=7571
https://www.jbl.de/?lang=en&mod=products&func=detail&id=7572

But if you want to go really DIY, you'll need: a bottle with screw on cap(empty soda/water bottle will do) or some other container, CO2 proof slim tubing, airstore or diffuser, check valve and ingredients for the fermentation process(water, yeast, sugar and as optional gelatin).
You make a hole on top of the cap that fits the tubing snuggly. You may also want to use something(like silicone) to make sure the tube stays secure and there are no leaks at the connection point. Check valve is definetly needed if you place the bottle below water level(outside the tank), as it prevents water moving from the tank to the bottle. Cut the tube into proper lenght for the check valve and connect that to the tube. I faintly remember it should be at the highest point of the tube(so at the tank edge), but can't find source right now to back me up on that... Then connect another piece of tubing the the check valve's other end and that piece's other end to the airstone/diffuser which you place in the tank. Now you mix warm water(important that it's warm or else the yeast won't activate), sugar and yeast in the bottle. Screw the cap on tight and then wait for the fermentation to start.
How much of each ingredient you need to add varies some and if you add gelatin then that changes how it's done by little bit. You can google other people's recepies for CO2 mixtures and then by trial and error find one that works the best in your conditions. If you keep the bottle somewhere warm(on top of the tank light for example) the yeast works faster compaired to if you'd keep it somewhere cooler. The problem with this CO2 method is that you can't accurately control how much CO2 is released and it's not possible to automatically shut it down for night time when plants don't need it. Unfortunately I don't think it's common to get CO2 overdose in the tank with the fermentation method, at least when using just one bottle. Still you do need to monitor the pH levels, as I said before if you have low KH then the pH can drop pretty drastically even with little added CO2.
____
I also prefer sand as substrate, for the reasons others have already stated. ^^ Of course if you go with light color sand it might look bit dirty if you have messy fish, but at the same time you'll see where you need to clean it and if you need to adjust your filter places or possibly feed less.
________________

Hi so I have a... Sort of complicated problem?
I have a betta fish named Mufasa, he's a blue-green dragonscale crowntail and he lives in a 3 gallon tank with a filter and a heater. A little less than a month ago he had some problems with the Velvet parasite, but he recovered after three days and he was fine for about a week...
Though I think it may have started another problem. At the time, he wasn't eating at all, so I would give him small sprinkles of food to test and see if he'd be willing to swim up and eat and he didn't until two days later, and I feel like this excess of food may have caused fin rot... But I don't think it'd be able to get as severe as it is with two weeks.
Some background information about my tank-care: I change 25% or more of the water every week (on Fridays to be exact) and I completely rinse out, wipe down everything and change all the water on the last Friday every month. I've never had any sort of problem with ripped fins before, and I did have a plastic plant in but the leaves were soft and curved, not pointy.
The week he was recovering, Mufasa lost a huge chunk of his back fin... I'd say 60% or more? and the top of his dorsal fins were all chewed up Here's what it looked like before, after. At which point I took out the plant in case that was part of the problem. And then I woke up one day and he had stress lines, which sometimes he gets faint ones if he's hungry, so I fed him, he ate and his color didn't return. I changed some of the water and things kept continuing like that.
Then four days ago he was laying at the bottom of the tank and he wouldn't get up unless you walked by the tank. He seemed to be "gasping" for air. I bought some aquarium salt and I completely cleaned out his tank but it's still not getting better. Earlier today he wasn't even willing to swim with his back tail fins at all, but he was able to keep himself afloat this evening. It was so bad I was completely expecting to come home to a dead fish while I was at work today. I completely changed his water and put in more aquarium salt, changed the filter cartridge. I honestly have no idea what it is??
Some other weird behaviors he's shown these last few days: random, sporadic bursts of swimming, "gasping" for breath at the bottom of the tank, he's swam headfirst into his rocks a few times, his color is completely faded, he's fins are clamped, not showing any interest in food.

Any and all help/advice would be gr8ly appreciated :>

How long have you had him? Water temperature? And on side note, he doesn't look like a crown tail to me...

Never ever ever do 100% water change and 'deep clean' the tank so to say. 100% changes are big stress to the fish as it means you need to remove them from their tank. Deep cleaning on other hand can kill all the good bacterias in the tank, so that you'll crash the cycle in the worst case. If you haven't changed the filter cartilage while doing those regular big clean ups, then that may have saved the cycle. And that un-eaten food definetly isn't good on the bottom, as it just releases more ammonia and nitrite.

To be honest and I hate to say this, he's condition sounds pretty severe at this point. I've had corries with similar symptoms and they've all died in matter of days after showing signs of swimming difficulties, no interest in food and clamped fins. I've tried some heavy antibiotics on them without any luck as my only suspection has been bad case of internal infection which causes their system to shut down. Few times the source of the problem has been qill worms, but those times medication has only worked on the ones that were just showing mild symptoms of qill irritation.
I don't have any personal experience with salt(no one around where I live uses it to treat fish), but I know it's double edged sword as too much is harmful for the freshwater fish. The idea behind salt is that the bad bacterias don't like it, so when you add little salt in the tank it's bad enough for them, but the good bacterias and the fish's system still tolerates the saltyness. But overall it's still not good for them.

Things I would do now:
1. Stop using salt, imo you're past the point where it may be helpful.
2. Test the water for ammonia and nitrite.
3. Do 25%-50% water change every other day, depending on what your water tests says. Point being you keep the water clean as possible, but not sterile clean.
4. If he's not interested in food, don't feed him. If you do and he doesn't eat it right away, clean it up.

[Rhaegal.]

@Hime Ooops, he's a halfmoon, not a crowntail.
I've had him since July and I keep his water temp at 78*F, however I'm not sure how old the fishy is, to be fair when I got him at Petco he had stress lines, didn't have any health problems for a while though.
Oh it wasn't technically 100%, I have a small hospital tank that's only a few liters and I use that to hold him. So whenever I change it he still has his original water in it, and his rocks aren't ever changed and are only rinsed out once while cleaning, there's still a bunch of his bacteria and stuff in there afterwards. Also adding that it's never cleaned with soap or chemicals either, just paper towel on the sides and to clean algae off of the heater/filter.
I know, I've been expecting him to be dead every time I come home from work. He's showing a tiny bit of improvement? Now if I walk by the tank he might swim up on his own, but it's never for very long and he usually floats back down, but he's actually using his back fins for it which he wasn't before. This fish has a ton of personality and is probably one of my favorite pets I've ever had, when he's healthy he likes to follow me around and flare up at anyone or anything else that comes near his tank, and he's already cheated death once. When he had velvet he wouldn't eat for three days and he still recovered from it (with medicine), I wouldn't be surprised if he just doesn't want to die.
Aaa to remove the salt that would mean a full water change, as salt doesn't evaporate. I think aquarium salt is only harmful if used used long-term or on live plants, but in my case it's just being used as first-aid as it's honestly the only medicine I could find. I can't find exactly what's wrong with him, I'm no fish expert, and every website tells me different things, but aquarium salt was one of the few constants. Of course, too much of anything is a bad thing, but I only use the recommended amount on the box, and I don't add it in every day, only after "complete" water changes.

Is there anything I could do to relieve stress for the fish? If he's going to pass I want it to be peacefully without him being uncomfortable, which I imagine he probably is because I don't really think this is old age but probably some sort of infection.

[PeachFuzz]

@.sav
The majority of beneficial bacteria in an aquarium lives in the filter media. It's impossible to maintain a stable cycle if you remove the filter cartridge before adding a second one and giving the bacteria time to build up on the new one.
Your betta is probably experiencing ammonia poisoning and stress. When was the last time you tested the water parameters and what were the results?
I am confident that you can save your fish if you're willing to put in the work to get the tank cycled.

[adelphi prime.]

Just popping in to tell everyone two great things. 1, I'm getting a larger tank for my betta Voyager and 2, I'm getting a new betta!

To begin, Voyager is currently housed in a 1 gallon tank. I am aware this is too small a tank for a betta long term, so I've been searching craigslist and other such sites for cheap 2.5+ gallon tanks. I've found a 3 gallon for him as well as a 5 gallon for the new betta.

The new betta is a marble grizzle halfmoon. He's going to arrive on Thursday if all goes to plan. This is my first fish I've purchased online so I'm rather apprehensive about him... even so, I'm also very excited! Here's a video of him provided by the seller.


He will be my third betta and I'm cutting myself off at this point... I have enough fish already. XD Anyways, I need names. Currently my other two bettas are named Voyager and Enterprise, so I'm thinking maybe naming him along the lines of another Star Trek ship. However, I'm really open to all possibilities, so if anyone has any ideas I would love to hear them.

[Dia.]

Going to throw this in about the salt:
You don't have to do a 100% change to get rid of it. Each time you do a partial water change, the concentration of salt will get lower and lower. Eventually it'll be negligible. ^^