Shai

Hi everyone, It's been ages since I last visited. I've been a fishmom all this time but life took me down roads that left me with little time to post on the forum. Now I'm coming back! I wish it was under better circumstances though, but primarily I'm back to downsize and sell or give all but one of my finkids away to someone who can take better care of them than I can right now. The one I'll be keeping I need to downsize into a nice little home suited just for her. After that's all done I hope to be able to keep tabs on the community a bit more like I used to, and one day down the road get back into more serious fishkeeping. Shai

Ha! Wouldn't that be something! I am still having trouble with this betta. A varied diet of frozen foods still causes him to blow up like a balloon, even when the amount offered is less than half the size of one eye. I do wonder if there is an internal blockage. When I brought him home, the tank I introduced him to had several very small ramshorn snails in it. He did take interest in them but I didn't think much of it. I've had bettas before who were rather offended by snails and would flare at them to teach them a lesson so I figured this interest would be no different. He'd probably never seen one before. But now I start to wonder if this betta ate one whole, shell and all. Their size was small enough to get one in his mouth if he was determined enough. I honestly can't really see that happening, but other than this eating issue the betta shows no other signs of illness at all. His color is great, his fins are healthy, and when he isn't fighting the bloat he goes about his business as usual. He's not reclusive or inactive. So supposing he does somehow have a shell in his stomach, he's either going to starve to death because I won't be able to feed him enough to sustain him, or the shell will hopefully eventually break down enough that he can pass it without it doing severe damage to his insides. I haven't tried any sort of medication or epsom salts or anything yet--just increased water changes. I'm not convinced I should medicate him, and not having any experience before using epsom salts, I'm not sure what help they might be in this situation. Thoughts?

In the last few days Osiris has been doing better. The latest blockage finally cleared and I've fed a few bits of frozen foods a few times. He still shows signs of difficulty but I haven't medicated, just continued to do frequent water changes. I'm taking it slow with him...don't want to do too much to the poor guy all at once.

Interesting read indeed. Seems to me my betta is one of the ones mentioned which is prone to bloating and constipation. I've had bettas before which ended up constipated for one reason or another--managed to eat a whole snail, for example--but never this bad. I tried feeding him one pellet only day before yesterday and today he looks the worst he's been: still has a marble in his gut and is laying on his side at the surface. I'm not new to keeping bettas or fish in general but these are good tips all the same. First thing I think is to get my betta feeling a bit better before I try letting him put more food in his body. Needs to fast for a few more days and if the bloat doesn't go down I think I'll have to try meds.

Hi everyone. Long time no post! About 20 days ago I bought a new crowntail home: I gave him two days to settle in. Because I had no idea what he'd been fed at the LFS (I forgot to ask) I didn't feed anything during that time--I wanted to make sure he wouldn't refuse my food. The evening of the second day I offered four 0.8mm pellets of NLS Surface Feeder Formula from my existing supply. I feed this to all my other fish including my other bettas. He took them readily. A little while later I noticed my new betta looked like he'd swallowed a marble and was having serious buoyancy problems--basically he was stuck at the surface and would float over onto his side. He was not pineconing. I did a water change, and a few hours later when he looked a little worse I did another one. The next day after work he looked improved but was still having buoyancy issues. I changed the water again. I didn't feed for another few days and the betta got "better". When I fed the NLS pellets again--same issue. I repeated daily water changes and no feeding, and again he got "better". Then I tried offering a different food: Nutrafin Max Complete Mico Granules. These are even smaller than the NLS pellets but I still only offered four bits. Same problem. This only occurs after feeding. None of my other bettas have ever reacted this way to pellet food and I'm not doing anything different with this betta than with the others. I can only guess the food gives him indigestion and gas! As soon as he passes what he's eaten, he's fine. But...I can't not feed him and it's terrible watching him flop around at the surface. I have thought about offering bits of a thawed pea to help him pass the pellets sooner but wonder if the slightly tough flesh of the pea might have an even worse impact instead. Obviously I need to find out what the LFS was feeding (I shudder to consider flake since the amount is so hard to control) but in the meantime I wondered if anyone has encountered this kind of issue before or any advice on what I can do to help poor Osiris.

Thanks for the comment! Nice to know even a year later that people are still enjoying the vid. Actually I was at the Shark Reef again this past November and got to see the new guitarfish they just introduced. Pretty spiffy shark! I have some video of that but haven't posted anything yet.

One of the easiest things you can do is increase your water changes--both the frequency and the amount changed. A clean environment will help boost your fish's natural ability to fight disease, parasites, etc. Extra water changes will also ensure you're eliminating any water quality issues (if any exist). Flashing can be a sign of a lot of things--ich (even if no spots are visible), gill flukes, irritated gills (ie, from ammonia or nitrite poisoning), etc. Fish might flash from internal parasites or other internal discomfort too (such as bacterial infection in the digestive tract). I'm not specifically familiar with swollen/protruding anus so someone else will have to comment. But it would be helpful to know if you've made any changes in your tanks recently: new fish? recently rescaped? new diet? etc.

This was posted today on the Calgary Water Services website: Mind those water changes! : )

BGA also does not like current. How strong is the water movement in the tank?

My canisters weren't happy each time the power flickered but they always came back. The smaller ACs did too. I know if I had still be using my big ACs they would have stopped every time. : )

PS: You need a tall tank that should be at least 30g for angelfish. Do platies OR mollies but not both (too many livebearers, potential for crossbreeding, etc). There is also some debate about the suitability of mollies in freshwater aquariums rather than brackish.

On 28 March 2010 you said the stock list was: 6 Apple Snails 4 Bettas, (2 Crowntail females, 1 Crowntail male, and 1 Crowntail/Halfmoon female) 14 Platies 3 small Albino Bristle Nose Plecos A lone female guppy Then on 30 March 2010 you said you added "12 more platies and a lone female guppy". Nevermind any potential CO2 problems, this tank was severely overstocked. Three BN plecos (even if small) was too much--plecos are poo machines. Apple snails are voracious eaters (which means they are also voracious poo machines) and six of them might be okay in a tank four times the size of yours. All that waste fouls the water quite quickly. Then you had 26 platies too? Besides these fish being prolific breeders, they also add a lot of waste bioload to the tank. (See a trend here?) Even if the tank hadn't been overstocked already, adding so many fish all at once was still a bad move. The existing filter bacteria would not have been able to cope with the sharp increase in bioload, allowing excess ammonia and nitrite to build up. I will also chime in that, no matter the "exception" experience of others, keeping a male betta in with females all the time is a definite no-no, especially in a tank this small. Even in betta harems (all females), extreme care must be taken because the females can often be more aggressive and deadly than males, particularly if one female gets it into her head that she needs to be "queen". You will always be able to find someone who can tell you a story that such a situation "worked out" for them, but the key is for how long? Success in keeping fish is measured in years, not weeks or months. Male betta with female bettas long-term is a ticking bomb.

*waves at yhbae* Nice to see you here too. : ) I've posted in your thread at Age of Aquariums. If anyone else here is curious, here is the ongoing thread on AoA which will probably answer a lot of questions. : )

ACK. I don't know what happened, but she was holding last night, and this afternoon she's definitely not. I suppose if she finally let the fry out, most likely there was a massive feeding frenzy in the tank... Dunno?