New to Bettas (and here)

[CHARLi3]

Hello all! I'm, if you couldn't figure out by the title, new to the Betta Fish owning. My boyfriend and I decided to start with fishies, since we live in a small apartment and we can get away with these little guys without raising our rent. He's owned them as a child but things I found out even he didn't know! We now have 3 tanks of the sizes, ten, five and one gallon tanks. The ten gallon houses our common goldies, another breed I don't know how to pronounce (but it starts with S!) and two algea eaters (one recently added due to fear Charlie would become aggressive) and our two ghost shrimp.

Our betta is a crown-tailed male named Charlie :) We started him out in the gallon but upped him to the five gallon last night when we got some guppies (no! i didn't put charlie with the guppies!) and a few neon tetras. The guppies got put in the gallon tank, just to see how they do, and put the guppies in with charlie.

This morning, charlie seemed really lethargic, we had gotten another heater (our goldies didn't like the room temp) and plugged in the filter, and all our neons were dead, thanks to the filter :(

Anyway, we unplugged the filter and heater and he was better and we rehoused the shrimps with charlie and we're going to get new tetras for charlie to hang with tonight. We got them in the first place because Charlie refused to eat ANYTHING! We put the flakes in, he refused to eat those and took him a while to even eat the pellets.. but he seemed to eat the flakes a bit better when the tetras were in with him, because he figured out that the flakes were ok for him!

So.. Really what I'm wanting to find out is suggestions for food that he, the shrimp, and the neons will all be kosher with. I did get some freeze dried blood worms to try out for his treat on Fridays. He does have a little castle and a little cave (which he loves the little cave!) but he hates the filter too, so I would like suggestions for the filter, food and possibly a heater, but he seems just happy with the room temperature.

[Olympia]

Hmm, well first of all welcome to fish keeping! :D
I see quite a few things wrong here though.
1. 10 gallons is too small for any goldfish. If you have common goldfish, the minimum size is 75 gallons for ONE, 125 for two, ect.. They may look small but they produce tons of ammonia, and they will soon have their organs damaged and their bodies permanently stunted from high toxin levels in so little water. I highly recommend rehoming these guys. Find out what the other fish species is. Also "algae eaters" could mean a ton of things, but most require at least a 50 gallon tank. This will go wrong very quickly, whether you see it or not.

2. Your neon tetra will need at least 15 gallons of water. Probably not why they died. Did you cycle your aquarium? Tetra are very sensitive and will NOT survive in a tank that hasn't gone through the nitrogen cycle.

3. Your guppies will need at least 15-20 gallons, and they will reproduce like crazy.

All your fish minus gold fish are tropical, meaning they NEED a heater (even the betta) to be healthy, with a good immune system.

I'm sorry for all the bad news, and this seems like a bad start to the hobby, I hope you can organize things better, the fish will thank you.
This community is very supportive and we will not judge you for all your mistakes, so feel free to ask away if you have more questions :)

[tpocicat]

Welcome to the forum!

Bettas are tropical fish and really should be kept in the upper 70's. An adjustable submersable heater would be best. New Life Spectrum for tropical fish would probably be your best bet, although others will argue for only the kind for bettas (I'm keeping the other fish in mind).
Are your goldies shubunkin by any chance? If so, they are cold water fish and will need a bigger tank in time.

[CHARLi3]

Yes the one I can't remember the name of is a shubunkin, but there's only one of them. And due to Charlie's bad behavior, he got demoted back to his gallon tank.

I still need a suggestion for food and filter for charlie though, and possibly another heater for his one gallon bowl. The other heater is fine for the other tropicals, just the basic one that walmart carries.

[Oldfishlady]

Welcome to the forum and to the wonderful world of Betta keeping...

Look forward to hearing more about your Betta adventures and seeing pics....

Enjoy your stay.....

Be sure and post questions in the proper section for best response.