18
A lot of pet stores - particularly those dedicated to aquariums - will happily take unwanted fish off your hands. So if that ends up the case, and you can't put them in another tank, call around and see if any stores will take them. Often the fish just end up getting resold by the store. I've heard some stores may even give you store credit towards the ...
14
Betta fish, which is how your fish are more commonly known, are famously aggressive. Males in particular should never be kept with other males -- one will kill the other. Females can be kept together in larger groups with care, but pairs or mixed-sex groups won't work. Don't even worry about trying to find it a mate until you're really comfortable keeping ...
14
I'm assuming you're referencing the Siamese fighting fish (correct me if I'm wrong.) They tend to be very aggressive, as I'm sure you know, and it is very popular to keep two of them with a separator made of plexiglas or some other acrylic see-through material. I don't think they get "lonely", rather "bored".
As far as breeding them goes, just be careful. ...
14
Most male bettas will fight with anything that even remotely resembles another male in finnage or coloration. Some will attack any fish indiscriminately, regardless of its appearance. It is inherently risky to house bettas with other fish. Some bettas are too aggressive to be kept with any species, and many community species will damage the finnage of a ...
11
Short answer: Maybe.
Bettas are often kept in community tanks. Care should be taken to avoid particularly brightly coloured or long-finned fish as this can increase the risk of aggression from the betta. Also, bettas should never be kept with other anabantoids (labyrinth fish) as aggression is nearly guaranteed between such species. Known fin-nippers should ...
9
I don't have direct experience with bettas, but I've never heard that pairs will work long-term in any male/female combination. There's research that suggests they prefer to be alone or in large groups, rather than with one other fish. From Social partner preferences of male and female fighting fish (Betta splendens), by J.L. Snekser, S.P. McRobert, and E.D. ...
9
A couple of things to look at are tank size, temperature, and location.
If that's actually the size of tank, its too small. While they do 'rest' a lot, bettas are actually fairly active fish. Watch them sometime in a big planted tank. They are very curious creatures, and like to explore and peck around for something to eat and/or chase. In a small ...
9
Contrary to what the pet stores would have you believe, every single betta fish needs more care than a small bowl. They make you think you're really upping their lifestyle by moving them from a small cup to a small bowl. The reason they can survive like this is because they can gulp air. Of course, they can also use their gills like all fish, but in the ...
8
Matt has asked me to post my results, so here they are.
I had poor execution. If one is easily saddened or depressed then stop reading now.
I set up a 5 gallon tank outside. Attached filter to ensure water circulation so the heat would drop evenly throughout and used a separator to divide the tank in half. Additionally I put a dripper that would drip ...
7
The catfish we have in home aquariums, are generally docile, and non predatory. They cannot chase non catfish fish as they basically are not great swimmers. What happens is that, the aquarium catfish need meaty, i.e. protein containing diet as they grow older.
In case they do not get this protein from whatever food they eat, algae, and leftover fish food, ...
7
You and your fish are a victim of the pet shop's lack of knowledge about fish and fish keeping.
Most likely your fish has ammonia poisoning as a result of not having cycled the tank properly. To cycle your tank properly please take a look here and do not add new fish to your tank until this is done.
The tank you have is too small for fish keeping, so you ...
6
Making a decision:
Whether or not you want to keep your fish alive longer is a very personal question. Only you can decide this. On a personal note, whenever a pet of mine gets to the point when it cannot function properly, and it's quality of life is extremely low, I believe it is time to euthanize. You may wish to consult a veterinarian on this before you ...
6
Unless you are remineralising your distilled water, you will have a very unstable pH, which may well be the cause of the problems you are seeing. Distilled water does not have the minerals necessary to buffer pH.
How much water are you changing? You should do regular partial water changes, complete water changes can be stressful for fish. Because of the ...
6
Fish are a complicated thing so I will go over specifics for betta fish.
Aquarium should be 5 gallons minimum.
Filter should contain activated carbon (absorbs contaminants), biomax (helps beneficial bacteria thrive), foam (traps debris). It should also be gentle, betta fish do not like heavy currents.
Small water heater - betta fish are tropical and thrive ...
6
This article has several good suggestions for potential betta tankmates. It also mentions:
Please remember that the ideas below are suggestions. Your betta may get along just fine with all of these new tankmates, or he might kill and eat them. Every betta is different, and these are just general guidelines.
It sounds like your betta is potentially ...
5
I have kept my betta for 5 years now. However, one thing that I observed is that they should not be kept in any container smaller than 5 gallons (around 19 L).
A lot of stores use excuse that bettas live in puddles and other excuses like that to try to sell merchandise. However, I know from experience that bettas can't live in anything less than 5 gallons ...
5
I highly doubt that water change would stress her that much. However here is what you do. Prepare gigantic batch of good water, get two tubes and another empty bucket. And then use dripping method. Let water drip into the tank from the good batch of water, and out of the tank into empty bucket. This will ensure that water is changed at an extremely slow pace....
5
I've gone through two snails with my betta over the last few years. I've never seen the betta care about the snail's presence. I would think the snail probably died of natural causes.
I don't think snails are as robust as bettas!
5
You can break these up but remember that if it's one you apply to the glass, you'll need enough surface area for it to stick. I've done this before with the smaller tropical tabs for shrimp and as long as there is still enough flat space to stick to the glass it will be fine.
I'm sure you already know (but it's worth saying for future visitors) - these ...
5
In my experience kuhli loach is not effective in any way at removing snails from a fish tank, no matter the number of loaches you have they will not remove the snails (even if you stop feeding the kuhli loaches in your tank, they will not eat the snails; please believe me on this, I have tried this by accident).
The solution you want for removing snails from ...
4
Only female beta fish can be housed together (relatively) peacefully. As soon as male fish come into their juvenile stage they will fight, and usually to the death. This is one of the reasons why they are sold in urine-sample sized cups in mass at pet stores (though it is not recommended for long-term).
Please see the other comments to your question, they ...
4
Yes is is okay to keep them separate. The males are very territorial and will fight so much that one of them could end up dead. So what you're doing is right, keep Siamese fighting fish separate for their own good.
4
Just feed them together. Use a quality flake or pellet food and it will be fine for both types of fish.
Also, just mentioning this out there because of the common, low-tech / no-tech, betta tank setups: if this tank isn't filtered and heated, do not put tetras in it. Bettas do not have the same water quality and oxygen saturation requirements as tetras do ...
4
From my experience raw cucumber is often too hard/unattractive for aquarium fishes and snails, especially if they're unused to it.
Put about 2 or 3cm of water in a pan or small pot.
Boil the water and put 0.5cm thick slices of cucumber inside it (should be mostly covered by water, so not too many). Remove any seeds before, the fishes won't be able to eat ...
4
The red flag for me was "conditioner". I have had fish for 70 years and never needed, or used conditioner. I have seen fish quickly die at an auction when conditioner was added.
A gallon is good for a Betta; in the 60's I raised them and kept the males in one quart (0.946 liters) containers. Keep them warm, 70 to 90 °F (21 to 32 °C), don't overfeed. Just ...
4
Consistency is key. You are quite right that a large peak or trough in temperature can have adverse affects on the fish and is sometimes known as temperature shock.
You want to do everything you can to avoid large swings in temperature, PH, GH etc because the fish struggle to adapt to it (which also includes water changes - the new water should be as ...
4
There are a 2 main reasons why a betta can become aggressive to other fish:
Visual apperance
In general, a betta will only be aggressive to other fish if he thinks they are 'competition'.
This can happen if the other fish has some visual similarities with other male bettas.
Most important is the fin size.
So as long as the other species has short fins it ...
4
Answer: It's not easy to say
In my experience it's difficult to conclusively say whether fin rot is involved or not. It is, of course, possible that your fish ripped its fin on something in the tank but you would expect a single rip as opposed to multiple missing curves. My catfish occasionally rip their tails on the wood in the tank, but this is normally a ...
4
There doesn't appear to be much of a difference
There seems to be a few reasons you'd want these leaves in your aquarium:
Lower the pH of your aquarium water
Releasing tannins into your water to get a more natural brown colour
Medicinal benefits
Encourage spawning
Firstly, both leaves (almond leaves and banana leaves) can be linked to reducing the pH of an ...
4
You shouldn't keep a betta in anything under about 20 litres. The shops will often tell you that 5 litres is enough but it's really not.
You'll want to have at least 20 litres for a few reasons. Firstly, as the fish is always creating waste, the more water you have per fish, the more diluted the waste is in that water. More water, less toxic ammonia (or ...
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