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majestic_storm's betta journal

6K views 75 replies 7 participants last post by  dramaqueen 
#1 · (Edited)
Hi, I'm just a college student who has a betta fish to ease the loneliness of being socially awkward. XD I love talking about my darling Rain to my friends but I think I bore them with all my talking, so I'll make a journal to worship my Rain/record his changes.

So I just came back to my dorm after being on vacation for 3 weeks. Yesterday morning I cupped Rain after I fed him, wrapped the cup with a towel, and put him in a cardboard box. I also filled a water bottle with some of his tank water in case anything happened (like water leaking out of the cup). It was a long and bumpy 6hr train/bus ride back to my dorm.

Got him back to my dorm in one piece. He was really listless and his fins were somewhat clamped. I quickly worked to get his tank all set up. I found that the pH of the water here is a whopping 8.2, as opposed to a 7.6 back at home. I slowly acclimated him to the new water and set him loose. He dropped like a stone to the bottom of the tank. But after a while he swam around, and I found that the filter made him uncomfortable even after stuffing aquarium sponge into the intake and baffling it with aquarium sponge so I turned it off. Sometimes he would swim, and stop, as though frozan. He still ate, but was really cautious of me (probably because he associated food with cupping and an uncomfortable ride in a cup). He kept hiding from me and stayed at the bottom. Fortunately, my shipment of IAL came in the mail, so I put a leaf in the water (hopefully it'll make Rain more comfortable and also lower the pH).

Today he's a bit more active, and is still eating, which is a good sign. He now seems to be scared of my hands (I lost his trust T^T). I went to Petco to get a 6500K light bulb. Replaced my current one with the new one hoping that Rain would like it, but instead he keeps hiding and seems lethargic, but the second I turn it off he's all active and swimming, so I think I'll keep the light off until he gets used to his new surroundings/water before I try to get him used to the new light.
 
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#2 ·
I am happy to say that Rain is back to his perky and spunky little self again. He loves the addition of the IAL, and he loves to hide underneath it regularly.

I know that IAL will sink in a while, but he's made a bubble nest underneath it to keep it afloat. Unfortunately I made it sink when I put my hand in the tank to flip my moss balls around. But I've kept the leaf near the surface by resting it on top of the bamboo leaves. He can now shimmy himself on the leaf whenever he wants to too!

He's gotten used to the new light, to some extent. I found that he likes to go into his terra cotta pot a lot more, but he usually goes in for a second and then makes a u-turn back out. It's so amusing watching him peek his head out. :-D

He's also started trusting me again, and isn't afraid of my hands when I drop the food down for him.

I think he likes to annoy me sometimes. When people see my fish tank they're like "oh! I want to see your fish" and that's when Rain's not being active and resting on the bottom next to the pot. But the second they leave, THEN he starts to be all active and glorious.

Oh, you little tyke! I'm sure you saying "talk to the tail!" in that picture XD
 
#6 · (Edited)
I notice that Rain seems to put the side of his head against things and make a quick dart from it. I'm not sure if he's rubbing against it or anything, but I've notice that he's done this since I first got him (a month ago) and am slightly worried that he might have parasites. However, his appetite is good, he's active, and his colors are as vibrant as ever, so I won't do anything for now, but will keep a close eye on him for any changes.

I'm also suspecting that he's tail biting since the top lobe of his caudal fin seems a bit uneven. I think that he's not getting enough stimulation. I've ordered some more silk plants and hope that they will entertain him. If not, I'll have to get some pingpong balls.

A few weeks ago, I tried to get Rain to jump to eat a pellet that was on my finger. It didn't go as well as I hoped it would. He jumped, and missed. Eventually he touched the pellet, but the pellet fell into the water and started to sink. He didn't see it sink, so he didn't eat it. I decided to not to try that again since I didn't want to keep picking up the uneaten food. Today, I got him to jump to eat food that's on my finger. I gotta say, his aim has gotten much better and he has no problem grabbing it from my finger. So I think I'll keep feeding him like this in the evenings when I have the time.
 
#8 ·
Thank you! He is good company :) My roommate goes out for the night=my night of talking to Rain. Even watched a youtube video with him today in hopes of entertaining him. He liked it XD

Yeah, it's so awesome how they sense your presence and come out to greet you :) How can you not fall in love with them?
 
#10 ·
Yeah, today my roommate's friend came to talk with my roommate and when he saw the tank, he rushed over and asked if there was a fish. He then saw Rain and was like , "Oh, it's a betta fish" and then walked away as though bettas are boring. He clearly hasn't properly had one yet.
 
#12 ·
Rain's marbling again. His fins are almost completely blue, along with his body (except his face, the little piebald guy :D). I gotta say, I liked it when he had more white on him, but oh well, I still love the guy to death. I suspect that the change in the water quality/pH is what's causing him to be more blue than white. I'll keep this theory in my mind the next time we go home (which is in about 5 months, hahaha). I'll post pictures later.

His finnage has gotten longer so I suspect that it's weighing him down. He used to be so active when he didn't have so much finnage. He's still active now, but he likes to rest his fins on top of the decorations a lot more than he used to.

On a more amusing note, today Rain pooped right as he was yawning. My eyes popped out when I saw it. He opened his mouth really wide, gills flaring and everything and then "plop" his poop came sinking down XD.
 
#14 · (Edited)
Within a week, Rain has changed from the picture in my first entry to this:


He's such a nice blue, but I kind of wish he still had some white on his body (excluding the face). I've accepted the fact that the last bit of his dorsal probably has somewhat of what I call "the crowntail effect" since it's been over a month, and there has been minimal regrowth in that area while his other fins have grown nicely. I think it's a nice quirk.
 
#15 · (Edited)
Freeze-dried bloodworms

So today I fed Rain freeze-dried bloodworms for the first time. I was debating on whether to feed the freeze-dried bloodworms or freeze-dried daphnia, but didn't quite figure out how to feed the daphnia, so I went for the bloodworms. Opened my container of Hikari freeze-dried bloodworms and didn't realize how badly they smelled. But anything for your fish, right? I got half a bloodworm and soaked it in some tank water and was surprised that the water turned a bit rusty colored. I put the worm on a q-tip and brought it down for Rain to jump and snatch it. I didn't realize how vicious he can be. He got the q-tip, thrashed about and got the worm. I was worried that he ate some cotton, but let's hope not. The second worm, he didn't quite get, so it dropped and floated onto the water. He got it, but I observed that he spit some stuff out (probably bits of the worm that he couldn't chew/eat). But yea, his first experience with bloodworms. I'll try daphnia next week, wish me luck in figuring out how to feed THOSE little things to him.

I also wanted to talk about aquarium silicone. It's like "where have you been all my life?!" Sure, it's all black and has a weird smell, but it's pretty amazing stuff. Plugged up the hole in my terra cotta pot so Rain won't get too curious and get himself stuck in there. I also use it to make the markings in my bucket so I can tell how much a gallon is. It's so versatile; I could probably use it to make aquarium decorations with pebbles and stuff if I had the time. But that's not the best thing. The best thing is that when the silicone at the opening of the bottle dries up, IT'S NOT THE END OF THE WORLD! It's like a rubber plug, all you need to do is take it out (and it's pretty easy, by the way), and the silicone inside is perfectly fine for you to use. :-D I found this out because the cap of my silicone cracked, so I was worried that the silicone would be all dried up and I won't be able to use it (like super glue), but when I unscrewed the cap, I saw the amazingness that is aquarium silicone!! I'm sorry, but I'm very excited about aquarium silicone right now, hahaha.
 
#16 · (Edited)
I spoil him way too much...

So my order of silk plants and light timer came in the mail today. The silk plants are by Hagen Marina, and based on first impressions, they look like they are much better quality than the silk plant I got at petsmart for 3.99. But I should expect that since I paid twice the amount for these plants. The plastic parts are very smooth and I could tell right off the bat that they wouldn't snag Rain's fins. Plus, the silk looks really nice and lifelike. I can tell that the leaves won't get frayed for a long time (as opposed to the Petsmart plant, which is already starting to fray, and it hasn't even been a month!). I placed two out of the three new plants into the tank (the third one is to replace the petsmart one once it's frayed beyond repair).



So far, Rain seems to approve of the new plants, and I think he'll be more comfortable and stop tail-biting since there's more covering and the big pennywort plant seems to block out a lot more light. I was debating on whether or not I should take out the plastic bamboo, but I think I'll keep it since Rain seems to enjoy swimming through the leaves (and his fins haven't been torn/snagged yet).

Oh, and when I was redecorating the tank, I held my hand really still close to the surface because I was curious about how Rain would react with my hand. I thought that it would be cute if he swam into it...but noooo. He kept nipping at my fingers because he thought there was food, the little stinker! XD
 
#17 ·
Caught him in the act!

Yup, he's tail biting. I was doing my lab report when I saw him swim up to one of the broad leaves. I think he was trying to get off, but his tail was in the way, so he tore his tail up. :( I saw bits of his tail floating down...and the thing is, HE ATE IT. I quickly rearranged the leaves so it won't happen again...but right now I'm on the verge of ripping my own hair out! Guess there'll be a double dose of stress coat in saturday when he gets his water change...
 
#18 · (Edited)
Water change day!

So I did a water change after I finished all my classes. My roommate came in while I was in the middle of it and joked about my "high tech fish technology" aka the water siphon XD. I'm getting used to vacuuming the gravel without actually sucking gravel up. You should've seen my first attempt last week. Didn't realize how wonderful a bare bottom tank was until I kept sucking up gravel and getting the hose clogged up.

I did a double dose of Stress Coat so that his tail will heal quickly. Also changed the IAL. In addition I took some gravel out because I found that I only had at most 4.5 gallons in my 5.5 gallon tank due to all the gravel and decorations. Moved the decorations around so that Rain can do some exploring. He looked so precious with his head peeping out of the pennywort plant, but the second he saw me whip my cell phone out to take a picture, he swam out of there as fast as he could XD. He seems to really like the addition of the new silk plants, and I like them too cuz I get to see him weave through the leaves.

He seems to pay more attention to the moss balls now, to my delight, but mostly to the tennis ball-sized one. He likes to swim up and rest right next to it, or on it, or sometimes he just likes to stick his head underneath it and stay there, all still.

I also got the light timer all set up, and so far, it works wonderfully! Rain seems to have gotten used to the new light too.

Oh, and I'm suspecting that Rain's been trying to eat the aquarium silicone that I used to plug up the terra cotta pot. He goes inside and sometimes I see movement like he's nipping at something =.= Why are bettas such pigs?
 
#19 ·
Salt treatment

So I got some input from the awesome people on this forum, namely Callistra and AyalaCookieJar and have started AQ salt treatments on Rain since he might have some parasites. Got some tank water and added the salt in and then slowly mixed the solution in with a turkey baster. As I added it in, Rain was really curious and kept swimming through the salt water that was coming out of the baster. He's still flashing, but hopefully he'll stop.

His tail seems to be healing already, to my delight.
 
#20 ·
Either my thermometer's bad, or my heater is...

So I wanted to increase the temperature in the tank to 85F, slowly of course. Currently, my heater is set to 83F, but my thermometer says it's only 80F...so either the heater can't get it up, the thermometer's not reading correctly, or the water's not circulating enough so the warm water's just around the heater...sigh.
 
#21 · (Edited)
Plastic bamboo finally says its goodbye...

So I just came back from my classes for the day and rushed over to a super happy Rain greeting me at his tank. To my horror, I saw that his anal fin had a fairly large tear, and when say "fairly large" I mean ripped halfway to his little blue body. I quickly removed the floating bamboo plant, at least, until his fin's healed up. I may either remove it permanently, keep it after his fin heals, or just get some smaller pieces of the plant to float on top to block out some light (but then again, the large IAL I currently have in the tank does the job nicely, as long as I can keep it near the top of the tank). The tank seems kind of empty without the bamboo and the moss balls (which I removed for the AQ salt treatment), but Rain doesn't seem to be too upset. Hey, it just means more room for him to swim around in, right? Plus, I still have one more silk plant I haven't put in the tank yet in case he needs something else.

The IAL that I have this time has made my tank water really dark, but maybe that's because I replaced it with a new leaf two days after I replaced the last one since I noticed a slime coating on the previous one and some little white worm-like things on the side of the glass (probably planarians, no biggie). But then again, the double dose would be good for his healing fins, and he seems much more comfortable swimming out into the light since the water's darker.

And as far as Rain's flashing goes, he was flashing yesterday, but I haven't seen him do it today, which is a good sign. Hopefully the AQ salt gets rid of whatever's been bothering him, or else I will have to call out the big guns and get out my Seachem Prime.

My heater's currently set up 85F, but the thermometer's still reading 80F...oh well, as long as the water's not below 76F I'm happy, I guess, but it makes me worry about what to do if Rain ever gets velvet or something like that and I need to up my temperature to 85F.

And he might not be the little piebald guy I thought he was, I see some black markings appearing on his face.
 
#22 ·
Today's day 6 of his AQ salt treatment, and it seems like he hasn't been flashing or anything of that nature, at least not during the evenings when I usually do work in front of his tank (his tank is riiiight on my desk, less room for me to utilize, but it's worth it :D). But I make sure to observe him at least 30 minutes a day to make sure nothing's wrong with him.

His tail's healing nicely, and I can barely see the tears that he did to himself. His anal fin will still take some time. I think that he's stopped tail-biting, which is awesome.

Without the bamboo decoration, I've noticed that he's on the bottom of the tank a lot more now that he used to be. I think it's cuz he used to be able to rest on the bamboo plants, but now he can't so he has to rest on the bottom at times.

I've found that when I put my fingers right up against the glass, he'll come out to check it out. He'll slowly advance towards my fingers while flaring his gills out, but he'll slowly back away, as though trying to "around" my fingers. Hahahaha, did the same thing when I put my earbud against the glass (was wondering if he liked music). He was curiously following my ruler around as I was making my graphs today. He's so adorkable!
 
#23 ·
So my nothing's wrong with my heater or my thermometer

So, when I was changing Rain's water today, I decided to stick the thermometer in some cold water to see if it worked; it did. Turns out, the reason why the water temperature was colder than the temperature I set was because I had the heated positioned upright instead of horizontal (I had this problem when I first used it and positioned it upright, set it to 79F, but the water barely reached 75F the next morning). I had set it vertically so that it would be easier for me to adjust the temperature when I was slowly upping it to 85-86F. But now the heater is positioned horizontally and the water temperature is at a steady 85F.

I didn't realize how dark my water got with the double dose of IAL. As the week went by, I noticed that the light seemed REALLY dim to me and I was like, "is the light supposed to dim out that fast? It's only been 3 weeks." When I dumped out the old water during the water change, it was the color of tea. After the water change, I turned on the light and was surprised at how bright the light was and actually thought that there was a second setting to my light that I didn't know about where there was a dimmer setting. Turns out there's only one, and it was dim because of the IAL tannins, hahaha.

Seems like Rain's stopped scratching, so I've stopped his IAL treatment with today being day 7. I didn't want to do the full 10 days because I was worried about how he would handle the AQ salt, but the water's at 85F, and will be for another week.
 
#24 ·
So, I see that Rain's a bit more active now that the AQ salt is out of the tank.

Unfortunately, I think that he's once again tail-biting :(

Also, I think that it wasn't the plastic bamboo plant that made the tear in his fin, but rather the silk pennywort plant. Now that I look at it more closely, the plastic parts do feel a bit sharp, so I'll get some sandpaper and sand it down some time.
 
#25 ·
...Ended up switching plants...again, hahaha



Being the super paranoid me, I've decided to not risk it and take out the pennywort plant until I can sandpaper the sharp edges down. But I'm definitely not planning on using it since it gives a rather nice contrast to the long-leaved plant. I decided to use the bamboo again, but then took it out. So for the time being, I put in the other Hagen Marina long-leaved silk plant that I was PLANNING on using once the Petsmart silk plant got too frayed. I've felt this one and have a lot less to worry about since the leaves cover up like 95% of the plastic and the ones that do stick out are SMOOTH.

I've also changed the IAL since to help his fins. Honestly, I think that Amy Lin's gonna be hearing from me again real soon if this keeps up XD.

After this whole fin tearing/fin biting ordeal, plakats seem more and more appealing to me. I mean, I've always liked them, but now I'm thinking of plakats ONLY.
 
#26 ·
so the AQ salt didn't work...

It seems like Rain's once again flashing...and I don't think that another 3 days of AQ salt's gonna get rid of whatever it is that's bothering him so I decided to use Seachem Paraguard instead. I'm quite surprised that it didn't make my water all blue. It looks like I didn't add anything, which I am happy about. Also, it seems like the Paraguard becomes inactive in 24 hrs so I just have to redose the medicine and not have to worry about the medication building up in the tank :)

I'm planning on using Paraguard for 3 weeks, unless it looks like Rain's uncomfortable, but so far he doesn't seem bothered.
 
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