About a year ago I purchased my first ever Betta fish from PetSmart. Everything was great yada yada. He survived 8 months before sadly passing away from what looked to be some sort of abscess on his abdomen. At the time, I knew very little about Betta fish but kept up with 30-50% water changes every couple of weeks, fed him
well (probably too much) and did my best (at the time) to keep him happy and healthy.
Fast forward, I decided to get a new Betta 4 weeks ago. It lasted just one week before mysteriously dying (no signs of death). I went back to PetSmart to find out almost all of their Betta on display were also dead in their little cups.
Before getting my 3rd Betta, second in a week-ish. I prepared much better. Did a bunch of reading, watched many tutorials on proper conditioning of water, aquarium organization and health, nitrogen cycle, etc., I even bought test strips for pH, Hardness, Nitrate and Nitrite (not ammonia).
Please note: with my first Betta, I had used a water conditioner but had no idea about the importance of the nitrogen cycle and cycling the tank before the addition of the beloved fish.
Today marks 2 weeks with the new (3rd Betta). I have a filter, have an Anubis plant, many fake silk plants, a couple of hideouts, a heater, a light I sometimes turn off for a little stimulation throughout the day all in a 5 gallon tank. I have conditioned the water, done multiple tests with the strips I mentioned above and all values were very normal and acceptable before introducing the fish. Before performing a 40% water change today, I performed another test and all values were normal except Nitrite which read 0.2ppm.
Again, I did not test ammonia. I tested after the water change and the Nitrite reads closer to 0.1ppm. My fish isn’t active, or at least when I’m around to observe. Every time I check on him, he’s hiding in a fixture or within the plants. Different locations most times but hiding/resting.
Am I missing something? Is he my gosh lethargic and unhealthy? I just feel bad. I observe him closely and read up on things but I’m just not sure I’m doing all I can. The filter is gentle but maybe not filtering well enough? I don’t know.
Any advice is appreciated if you read parts of this book 🤝
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Posted by PlumpPopper
2 Comments
Maybe get real plants since it’s better for them & change the gravel into sand. Also you have to be careful w those toys bc sometimes the paint chips & it’s bad for them
If your nitrite is reading high (anything other than 0ppm is high) then I’d recommend doing 25% water changes daily to get those numbers down asap. If nitrite is high your ammonia might also be high, both are harmful in small quantities.