STUMPED and frustrated!

[Cerulean]

Thanks everyone. I is so great to have help when u need it. Dique thanks for the site but I had already found it. I thought maybe seed shrimp too but it is not big enough. So today I did a big clean and filtered a bunch of he water through some coffe filters and it is mostly gray debree. The water appears crystal clear until you disturb the sand then a huge mess. So I cleaned a bunch of it and the water coming out was gross. One of my original thoughts was snail waste. Even though it doesn't totally sound like the description this all started after the snail. The sites I went to said snail are huge waste producers so the snail is gone. Hopefully this will help. My betta appears better than ever and hopefully I can ge things back the way it was two weeks ago. Fingers crossed. The other hong as someone suggested is the quality of the sand and hard water. It is cheap sand and we have very hard water so I will see if it continues, I may have to look into that as well. For now the snail is in a friends tank and hopefully mine will get back to normal. I will keep u all posted and hopefully Cerulean will be able to handle all the water changes while I try to sort this out. Why oh why did I think he needed friends? (shaking my head). Till later thanks again all

[Cerulean]

Update: it was totally the snail. HUGE waste producers and I mean huge. After the clean I did previous there was just a tiny bit that the filter took care of and a week later nothing in the sand but a few betta poos as in the beginning. I can just use the baster again to remove it and some water like i did from the beginning. So, just thought I would let everyone know to beware of adding snail , especially to a small tank unless you want to be gravel siphoning every darn day. Thanks again and good betta health!

[DiiQue]

Glad you got to the bottom of it. Thanks for the update!

[prodrumernate]

im glad u posted.i thought about getting a snail once my tank cycle.now that i know i think ill skip the snail...im glad every thing worked out....thanks for the update and info :)

[Cerulean]

no problem, i miss the little guy, but it wasn't worth having to clean the gravel every darn day so i guess you need to have a much bigger tank than a 2.5 gallon or alot of time to clean up after them. So far the tank is still totally good, and even if i had a larger tank, knowing what i know now i don't think i would get another one. It is good to have the problem figured out.

[Greylady]

Thanks for the information about the snail. I sometimes thought of getting a snail or a shrimp too just so my betta would have something to interact with and not be so bored. It's great having this forum to bounce things off each other and relate our storys because no matter how much info is on the internet, it's always nice to talk to people that have expierenced a situation first hand.

[Cerulean]

Graylady you may still want to try a shrimp. There are people or more particularly bettas, hehe, on here that won't eat a shrimp. Some are more aggressive and territorial than others. I just discovered that my cerulean prefers a house to himself. Maybe it is because I made him wait so long to get it. Lol Although from what I have learned here most bettas in little houses especially, are better alone. Good luck whatever you decide.

[prodrumernate]

i thought of shrimp as well but read they could be aggressive and bite at the betta.i want to get a ghost shrimp since they are small and cheap....i think a snail would be good in like a 50+ gallon aquarium but not the smaller ones

[Cerulean]

A ghost shrimp is what I had and he didn't stand a chance. From the minute I put him in, my betta was on the prowl. It was hilarious actually, he stalked the shrimp and the snail. He attacked the shrimp whenever he got the chance until it hid. Then the next morning I woke up to shrimp bits all over the tank and he continued to stalk the snail and I mean stalk. Lol it was very amusing, maybe not for the snail but for the fish and I it was funny. Hehe so in my tank the fish rules all!!

[Greylady]

Originally Posted by Cerulean

Graylady you may still want to try a shrimp. There are people or more particularly bettas, hehe, on here that won't eat a shrimp. Some are more aggressive and territorial than others. I just discovered that my cerulean prefers a house to himself. Maybe it is because I made him wait so long to get it. Lol Although from what I have learned here most bettas in little houses especially, are better alone. Good luck whatever you decide.

I may still try a shrimp, I'm sort of waiting until my tank is completely cycled (I'm really close I think) then there will be less water changes and disruption of the tank. I think it might work because Gandalf seems very social. I can't even get him to flare even with a mirror. He seems to want to make friends with his reflection more than flare at it. In the betta world he'd probably be labeled a wimp! Anyway, if there was a problem with the shrimp I could always move the shrimp to the 1 gallon "hospital tank" I have set up "just in case". If I need to use the hospital tank for any reason (hopefully I won't) I can just switch them.