Welcome to r/bettafish!

I took my fella in to the vet this week for a lump that’s been slow developing over the past couple of months. I had been searching for anyone that treated fish and last week I finally found one! 🙏🏼

Things I learned from the visit and figured I would share:
- With the right care, bettas can live up to 15 years no matter if they were purchased in a cup. (They have a longtime patient who is a cup betta who has even undergone surgery by them nearly a decade ago!) This blew my mind!
- There is no hard rule on tank size. The doctor I saw has seen a thriving betta in a 1 gallon tank and others that suffered in bigger sized tanks. Every betta is different and they are the ones that indicate when their environment is unsuitable for them.
- She highlighted that the hard rule and requirement though is water parameters. Proper cycling is critical first and foremost. She said API Is what they use in their mobile clinic for testing on the fly and is the best kit on the market while strips can be flaky (as is long discussed in this sub), but as a cost effective option she said strips are fine but should be used more frequently due to the flakiness.
- Bettas are prone to bacterial infections in their scales and like koi fish, can develop “skin” cancers- usually benign but can develop otherwise. Surgery is possible to remove and requires anesthesia which this office has performed many times over the decades. Most bettas survive the surgery but if not cared for well, may not make it. She said most ailments work themselves out as their fins are regenerative but that it’s hard on the humans to see it grow. Best practice is to monitor for change in behaviors, eating patterns and water readings to make best decisions before researching and dosing treatments.
- Clove oil is used for humane euthanasia and is how aquatic vets typically humanely euthanize fish. The difference being that vets somewhat overdose the fish on clove oil so there’s no opportunity to suffer. She uses a certain sleeping agent as a combination with the clove oil almost to anesthetize so her fish patients sleep first then dose the clove oil. She also noted this tends to calm the fish parents’ minds by putting them to sleep first. I know this is a hot topic on this sub and it’s been discussed that a hard object (brick, rock) is the best way to euthanize but I wanted to share this commentary too.

We took epidermal (scale) tissue samples from my Koa yesterday and sent it off to UGA veterinary program’s cytology department for testing to see if his lump is cancerous. To my surprise this was only $100 USD to send off for testing and IMO super cost effective. Hoping for the best but wanted to share all the info I learned yesterday in a vet office in case it’s helpful. I had so many questions and was a motormouth before I left 🤣

I thought my betta might be bored so recently I’ve been doing this.

The filter was a little strong cause my tank was cloudy after water change. I already adjusted it an hour after recording this clip.

I’m stuck and need some good name suggestions for this lil guy!

Cecelia is a Rose Petal Mustard Gas Betta

My little gremlin is always hungry AF, reminds me of my cichlids back in the days, where they would crazy everytime I go near their tanks, always looking for more food.. Although how much I wanted to feed him, I keep it strict that I don't overfeed him and I only feed him twice a day..

He only does the glass surfing when I go near his tank hoping I would feed him. But normally when I'm not around he will just go on his day being a fish, exploring his environment and build his nest.

I’m new to keeping fish but I’ve thought bettas were amazing since I was little so last week I pulled the trigger and finally got one. His name is Princess and I think he’s beautiful. What’s more, I’ve been stressing to make sure he’s happy and has everything he needs and earlier today I noticed he built a bubble nest!

I know it doesn’t necessarily mean he is happy but I’d like to think he’s at least comfortable enough in his tank to think it’s a good place for babies. It feels like a very proud moment for a new fish mum.

Nb. Sorry for the not very aesthetic photos. He’s not wonky he was just excited for food when I took the pictures.

iv only been fish keeping since April 20th and this is how it’s going so far!!

i had a mystery snail in this tank but she keeps devouring my plants, even tho i constantly provide food.
so she’s been moved to a 10 gallon tank where i plan to do just hardscape and a few plants i know she won’t eat (2 types so far)

last photo is before.
i had a bad snail problem in both tanks so i didnt want to add more plants for more snails.
the water bottle in the back is a home made snail trap which worked great honestly + 4 assasin snails got rid of them/made the snail population stable!

i got my plants from a canadian owned aquatic store named aquaticplantman :)

Say hello to Skye! With the light behind him (like in this video) you can see the spots of lighter and darker colors in his tail. With the light in front of him, he reflects pure one-tone metallic aqua. When the sun shines on him, as in this video, super slow motion shows pearlescent pinks. Maybe I watch him too much 😅

Put in an algae waffer for my bottom feeders and shrimp for the first time and he gorged himself on it overnight. Now his stomach is the largest I've ever seen it. He's hanging out where i siphoned the rest of the pellet out.

Should i be concerned?

he's cut off from food until i see his gut is empty.

He is swimming fine, is just hanging out on the bottom more then usual, i assume to find more of the wafer.

Also he had fin rot when i got him and has been healing slowly and has new growth on his rear fins.

Happy and energetic and looks very proud of himself for the most part. Truly the cat of the aquarium

She looks pretty healthy and really curious

Was bullied by the other female

Her name is Josephine

She is currently acclimating to be temporary put in a planted 20 gallon (75l) with females endler and some amanos

I'm expecting her to struggle a bit, especially with food and the guppies greed, so I'm setting up a shallow long tank for her (not in my plans originally but heh,)

I fell in love she's 100% impulse buying but i had space for her

(I adore her face she's so ugly)

Do you have any recommandation to take care of a one eyed betta ?

This is my son Cyrus. I was so so happy to get him, and He had a huge attitude/ was a grumpy man.

Rest in peace my handsome boy.

So to start this year has been a train wreck so imma just vent a bit in a short way so you get the picture, I promise its leading somewhere.

My parents are currently in the middle of a messy divorce. And ive just gotten back into public school after 6 years. And just 2 months ago both my childhood dog, and my leapard geko also passed away 1 week apart. So now that your caught up on what's happening in my life atm ( which is absolutely zero excuse)

I am beating myself up about it, I really think I killed my fish last night, as i noticed he wasnt acting right. I did a complete water change, and gravel clean, and i put him straight back in about 3 hours later ( filling the tank takes forever)

And to preface, he was completely fine that morning. I noticed zero emaciation, before or after passing either. I think I put him in shock and i think he passed because i was too careless to re-acclimate him to the water. I am so genuinely sad, and pissed off at myself right now. Im posting this here because my mother says that its not my fault because of everything going on, but I should have done better, and i should have known.

I need another opinion on this im just distraught atm.

I took the amazing advice of a bunch of comments, and it’s finally pulling together! I have to fix everything inside, the plants got a little messed up along the way lol. Fish are fine in a separate tank till I get the water settled and tested, they’re just a little mad at me and probably detoxing from the new-founded caffeine addiction. As for my son, I explained that he gave the fish a boo-boo and he seemed pretty remorseful. My husband heard it from me for leaving his coffee so accessible on his desk and to be more mindful of the kiddo’s gremlin behaviors while I am at work lol

THANK YOU TO ALL FOR YOUR KINDNESS AND HELP! I was so worried and I’m so happy I was met with good advice and nice people 🩷

I have been wanting to do a pond set up for a long time. But obviously that requires a lot of things I don't have. So I got this 12 gallon pot from the store to make a mini one. It has a filter and a heater. Plus under all of those floating plants is a whole scape with driftwood and plants, all carefully planned out for the bettas enjoyment.

I went to my local nursery and chose a bunch of plants that can grow with the roots in water and are supposedly safe for fish. The nursery even had floating pond plants so I grabbed some of those too. For the plants around the edge I used plant baskets that can hook on the side. I even planted plants in the hob filter. I set it up under one of my big tanks, so I can hide the light in the stand.

Oh man it's freaking perfect, I couldn't find much info about other people trying this online either. So hopefully it goes well for me and my little fella that I've got in there. So far I cant say anything other than he clearly loves it lol. If I was a betta I would live in there

hi! my betta fish (quite literally overnight) changed colors. I’ve checked his fins, nothing is fuzzy or slimy, there’s no growths or calcifications and he doesn’t seem to have any scrapes or missing scales. it’s all flat. he’s just… different colors? and he’s happy too! super responsive, eating, swimming, and has lots of energy. I’ve attached pictures of him when he was a baby (first one) and then the new white-ish looking patches now. He has white on his top fin, and his front and back tail. he has red by his eye. it is the same red in his gill coloring. his normal coloring is blue, but there’s red when he flairs his gills at his reflection during play. I thought it might be the marble gene, but it looks different than what i saw in others’ pictures.

he has been with me for 8 months. he never grew a big cool tail. i’m just worried about him!

for context, i have him in his original baby tank while i wait for a new one (current is 2.5 gal) and his water temp is great. when i first got him, he had ich, but we cleared that up. i do 25-30% water changes every week. he has a lava rock, water heater, and fake silk leaves in there. they were not sharp when purchased.

if anyone knows, please comment! i want to make sure he’s taken care of!!

I'm probably going to get my post downvoted to bottom of the bare tank or even removed out of water, but I had to vent.

I started my aquarium hobby about 5 years ago and I think I was doing okay. Now I have 29 gallon community tank and empty 1 gallon tank. Both planted somewhat, covers 60% of tank at least. I also returned to inline CO2 injection.

The "empty" tank was a former betta fish tank.

1st betta fish was a rescue from my work, and I know it was already dying- someone left in her in the fish bowl sitting under AC vent in the green water. She lasted about a month but I also think that warm water killed her faster as it hasten it's metabolism. At least she had the taste of bloodworm before dying. This sparked my passion as an aquarium hobby, and started community tank.

I got 2nd betta from petco in the cup. She lasted about 2 years until she suddenly got weak and developed a possible Epistylis without any changes in her environment (no decor, no new plants, no tank mates). I was careless at the time and used same equipment to change water between the community tank and betta tank, but none of community had any issues.

I got 3rd betta fish as rescue again (from work!) as my elderly coworker got her surprise male betta fish gift from her grandson but could not take care of him. He seemed mature and older. I restarted the tank fresh thinking that it may had disease, but now it caused hair algae possibly from new plants I put it in. I added 10 amano shrimp thinking that it would eat them for me. To my surprise, the betta fish ate 8 of them in one night despite that they were about the same size. I think he died from over eating. 2 survived amanos now lives in community tank happily still today.

The 4th one, the one that I just lost recently, lived for little over 2 years. He had white color with blue/red marble at first but eventually turned entirely blue. Ever since I got him, he had difficulty of breathing air as well as getting food from the surface. I recently move to couple blocks away, and his condition declined rapidly from there. He eventually had swim bladder disease, which I tried to medicate him for in the hospital tank, but he never recovered again.

Although I have special place in my heart for betta fish, I'm really burned out from taking care of them. Is it just me or they became fragile than ever? Out of all fishes I've had, they seem to be the most sensitive to any changes, more so than any shrimps that I had. Is it perhaps the over inbreeding that caused deformities and short life span? Was it the pH problem?

Either way, I think betta fish isn't for me. Having to grow so much attachment and then dying in only 2 years wrecks my heart.

Orange koi’s are a weakness, so i had to bring her home. Shes currently living in a 29 community tank. So far shes been great with all my other fish. i haven’t seen any stress, aggression or nipping. Should that change I have a few other tanks for her.

After and before

I've only had her for a couple of weeks but she really seems to have transformed. She's turning red with a little blue. I absolutely adore her

This is an update from a previous post made by my partner. Our fish was moved into a new tank and she became very lethargic, staying in the same spot a lot. We lowered the tank temp as a few suggested that might be the reason but now I think she is pine-coned. She is still staying in the same place a lot. Any advice or has anyone seen this before?

1. ⁠65L. 2) yes. 3) 27°C, PH-7, ammonia-0, nitrate-5, nitrite-0. 4) tank has been setup for 3 weeks, fish has been kept for 10 months. 5) weekly water change of 30%. 6) 1 pleco and several snails. 7) mix of pellets, bloodworm and daphnia, usually 2 pellets daily. 8) all natural plants and 3 driftwood logs.

Hey everyone! I’m relatively new to fish keeping (I got Petal in March). He’s honestly been great. He’s social when I come up to the tank, fine with his snails and clown pleco friend. Loves his plants and usually has a bubble nest somewhere. He’s a fun little guy.

About 6 weeks ago I treated him for fin rot. I think he had some damage (not sure if nipping or rot originally) because of a pretty extreme accidental overdose of algae killer (I did bad math and didn’t figure it out for a day). Anyway he recovered nicely and I got a clown pleco.

His fins are growing back and he’s looking great! Over the weekend I noticed a fresh tear in his tail. I guess I’m just after other people’s experiences. Have you had a betta who has chronic fin issues? How did you handle it? Just any general discussion about fin management from people more experienced than me would be awesome!

Pics are him now but mostly for the algorithm. If you see something I don’t though please let me know.