The Chronicle of the Betta

[GotGait]

Anyone else have one? I had salt water fish for many years, but after an unfortunate incident involving my BIL, a frozen burrito, and a blown fuse, I decided not to keep going with that hobby.

This week, my husband and I bought a 6 gallon tank, filter, gravel, heater, etc… then we went about picking a Betta to “save” from its little cup at PetCo. Fortunately, my PetCo maintains their fish surprisingly well so they were all in good shape despite the awful little cups.

I couldn’t decide which Betta to pick. I picked up a light turquoise Veiltail and then a royal blue one, then I put the blue one back, and my husband held the turquoise one while I picked up every Betta in the store to compare with the first fish. The last fish I picked up was a fancier Crowntail, and I put the turquoise Betta back on the shelf. Then I felt guilty. I had been holding the turquoise fish for a few minutes by then and had apparently bonded with it. So the turquoise Veiltail came home with me.

He went absolutely gaga over his new digs. We put a few live plants in and he sleeps on the leaves at night. He’s also turned a gorgeous dark teal color.

I change the objects outside his tank every couple days and he will watch them for hours. He watches the dog too.
He rushes to the front of the tank whenever he sees my husband or me and wiggles and flares and shows off. Of course, he hid behind a plant when I tried to show him to other people. I guess they can recognize faces which is something my salties couldn’t do. They would beg for food from complete strangers.

Anyway, I know this is probably boring, but I think he’s really neat for a fish.

I’ll post a pic of him tomorrow when I can get to my computer.

ETA: Here he is in his Fluval Edge. I don’t fill it all the way to the top which kinda defeats the point of the Edge, but since he breathes air, I felt better about it. It still looks pretty cool.

[SkipHiLad4me]

I love Bettas! But I always manage to kill mine after a few months :no: so I decided maybe it’s best for me to admire them from afar… :lol:

[Frivian]

I also love Bettas! I’ve had the same one for over a year now. Here’s hoping for a few more!

[good_booie]

I love my Betta:) He lives quite peacefully in my 30 gallon community tank. I love your set up. so pretty. Keep meaning to do something like at my office.

[RolyPolyPony]

That’s awesome! We have one in quite a nice setup here at work - in the library! We’ve had him for over 2 years and he’s still going strong They’re great fish - more fun than you’d expect!

[Burbank]

I had a betta that I use to hand feed, he was in a community tank and sometimes was slow to eat so I would hold a flake in the water and he would swim up and eat it, this was his trick and we would show others, they were always amazed

[hastyreply]

I had one for over 3 years. My adult daughter named him “Masta” (rolls eyes). He did well, but didn’t have as cool a place to live as yours.

[GotGait]

[QUOTE=SkipHiLad4me;6141165]
I love Bettas! But I always manage to kill mine after a few months :no: so I decided maybe it’s best for me to admire them from afar… :lol:[/QUOTE]

Aw, you should try again. The big thing with these little guys seems to be temp, and either a filter or frequent water changes.
I got a 6 gallon so I could maintain temp and water quality easier. He does use the whole tank. He was so surprised by the size of it that he would swim in little spurts at first. I guess he thought that he would hit a wall any second. He explored the entire tank and patrols it frequently for invaders.

He does have 2 Ghost Shrimp for company. He occasionally herds them around like he’s a sheep dog.

Here he is with a Ghost Shrimp. Oh, and his name is Chips - like fish and chips. My husband named him.

[CrazyGuineaPigLady]

I love Bettas. We just lost our white and purple crowntail named Disco. He was at least 3. Before that we had 3 females in a 30 gallon tank with a group of Platys. The girls did a great job of keeping the Platy population down. Dog and Cat were our original boys and they were also crowntails.

When I have a chance to set up the 30 gallon tank again, I’m getting another male and some Corys. Bettas are neat fish and very personable!

[EquineImagined]

I loved mine! Schmendrick and Shakespeare. They had the little two compartment tank where they could see eachother through the divider. They’d fan and put on quite a display, and then go back to their respective corners and just hang.

Shakespeare would take his little foodie pellets from my fingers. Schmendrick would hide behind his plant until I dropped them. As far as the fish in my life went, they had the most ‘personality’.

Although, mine must have been agoraphobic…I tried putting them into their own larger bowls and they just weren’t as ‘happy’

[bdj]

Very nice setup for him!

I don’t have any fish at the moment, but at one point, I had 5 or 6 bettas, each with his own 2.5g setup. It took a bit of work to maintain that many small tanks, but I really enjoyed the little guys!

If you want to give him some “exercise”, you can put a mirror next to his tank, and he’ll flare and display at it - just don’t leave it up all the time (because he’ll either wear himself out or get “bored” about it). It’s really cool to see them display!

[GotGait]

[QUOTE=bdj;6141590]

If you want to give him some “exercise”, you can put a mirror next to his tank, and he’ll flare and display at it - just don’t leave it up all the time (because he’ll either wear himself out or get “bored” about it). It’s really cool to see them display![/QUOTE]

Oh, yes he has a mirror. I put it up for a bit so he can show off. He’s not very aggressive and doesn’t attack the glass like some do. When I remove the mirror, he goes off to patrol the tank to make sure the other fish is gone.

[spookhorse]

My daughter and I have three between us at home- I have two: Jules and Vladimir; and she has one: Verne

Jules is a pretty blue with some red on his fins veiltail, Vladimir is a very dark blue with some red on his fins crowntail. Verne is a light purplish Cambodian, I suppose he’s a veil but his fins are much shorter than the Jules’ but I don’t think he’s a plakat… just got unlucky in the fins dept.

Jules has a 2.5 gal and the others are in 1 gal each. I need to upgrade Vlad as he is too fat and needs to move more. He’s just getting over a swim bladder disorder (funny to see him try to swim down and he bobs back up!). Jules patrols his tank all the time and does recognize people. He also likes to jump out of the water and bite your finger when you hold it just above the surface- it cracks me up!

Since I got the pet dept job at work I now current have about 3 dozen more Bettas to care for everyday! The males in their cups and the females in a 25 gal with some Corys. I love the females- they will all swim for my hand when I hold it in there, they’ll nibble on me or sit in my cupped hand

I am doing half water changes in the males’ cups 5 days a week and they are improving. Care had been really lacking before I started and now they are perking up and flaring at each other and actually getting sold yay!

[CrazyGuineaPigLady]

For some eye candy Bettas, check out Aquabid. The site has really slowed down since the last time I looked but there are still plenty of pretty fishies.

[GotGait]

[QUOTE=CrazyGuineaPigLady;6141759]
For some eye candy Bettas, check out Aquabid. The site has really slowed down since the last time I looked but there are still plenty of pretty fishies.[/QUOTE]

I look at this site all the time. There are some gorgeous fish on there. I think next time I will order one from there because I love the ones they call Mustard Gas. Then there is this one:

http://www.aquabid.com/cgi-bin/auction/auction.cgi?fwbettashm&1329340192

I told my husband it was a “Steelers” fish. He wants it. LOL

[CrazyGuineaPigLady]

He is beautiful! I’ve never ordered from Aquabid but probably will next time. Bettas are hit or miss at Petco/Petsmart around here and the two “aquarium stores” are worse. One is nice but limited selection (for anything) and the other is just gross. I spent more money on stress related issues from that place than I ever did for the fish.

[spookhorse]

I love the mustard gas Bettas. We’ve got a veiltail at work with the coloration but I’m waiting to see if he recovers from the shipping stress. He’s still a bit mopey

I’ve haunted Aquabid and have seen some really nice ones on there, of course with “nice prices” LOL MN Betta Shop does all the hard work of getting large quantities of nice Bettas into the States and you can sign up for emails when they get shipments in. I’ll probably go with them when I’m ready for another

[irkenequine]

In my asshole years in college, I bought one as a joke and had it in a tiny, stereotypical round bowl that I kept on a shelf. Every week or two I would carry it into the dorm bathroom, put it in a sink and run the water for 2 minutes into the bowl to ‘change’ out the water. I never monitered temp or put any drops in but the thing managed to live until I graduated :eek::eek:

Of course in his latter years he got a more decent and stable set up and was actually cleaned accordingly; but he went a whole year on the “horrible ambivalent fish owner of the year” schedule and hung in there. I’m not proud but its true–tough little fish! His name WAS Jesus (hey-zeus ) though, maybe that had something to do with it.

[jaybee]

I had a Betta in college. Got him in the middle of my freshman year and he lasted almost to the end of my senior year! I was thoroughly impressed because I frequently carted him back and forth between home and school, and he survived things such as me sliding into the drivers seat of my car and accidentally sitting on his transport cup (I had forgotten that I had put it there only minutes before - oopps, bad memory!) and jumping out of his tank onto the counter once! He was a miraculous little fish!

I agree that water temperature is important. I’ll also add the fact that you should keep checking your plants and if they look like they are dying, immediately remove them and change the tank. I went through a tough time where I couldn’t figure out why he all of the sudden slowed his eating to almost nothing and just seemed sluggish and completely uninterested. I had taken a plant out of the water that didn’t seem to be doing so hot, but didn’t change the tank initially. When I did change the water, he perked right back up to his normal self! I think the dying plant was releasing toxins of some sort. He lived for a solid year after that incident though!

ETA: I also found that adding an air filter did wonders!

[GotGait]

I had one plant you can see in the pic that wasn’t doing so hot, and it got removed today. The others are doing well. There is a piece of Lucky Bamboo in there that will have to come out eventually since its not an aquatic plant. I don’t know why pet stores sell it as such. This one came bundled with another plant that I wanted.

Irkenequine, Jesus the Betta was indeed miraculous.

Jaybee, I had a 10 gallon tank in college, and at the end of every semester, they all got packed up in an Igloo cooler with several inches of their tank water for the trip home. Tank got emptied and went in the backseat and away we went. They got sloshed around some on the 4 1/2 hour trip, but I never lost a single fish. Some of them lived well past college, and one got a real burial when he finally died from old age at 6. My mom cried. :lol: