I now hold my lfs at a lower standard. I usually go in there and of course like all other fish stores they keep there bettas in tiny few ounce cups which already irritates me since they have a barracks system set up for store bred SW products. After I passed by the cups I went by and decided to look at their tanks....you know just to "observe".
So I was walking by the usual's: Huge planted tank, SW Coral tanks, SW fish, and then I got to the freshwater section. There were Cichlids, Koi, Goldfish, an Arowana for some reason.... and then I got to the tank with the neon tetras. Now at this point you're probably wondering "so just a normal store with the normal misunderstanding of bettas" well I looked in the tank with the neons and let me tell you what I saw. The flow in the tank was pretty strong but neon's being as streamlined as they are were doing fine, as I was looking closer I saw 2 fish that were NOT neons, they were bettas.
These poor two fish were being thrown all over the tank from the output. I decided I would ask how much the fish cost....the guy said 1.49 and my jaw dropped. Without realizing it I must have stammered "I'll take them" because the next thing I realized was I was sitting in the car with a brown paper bag containing the two little troublemakers while getting ye olden stink eye from my mother. Anyway here are the two "hopefully" girls that will eventually end up in a sorority, it was only them and the neons but I think they were too tired to fight. Whats even more shocking is the store guy said somebody breeds bettas in the area and brings them a new batch almost every 2 weeks!
*Photos were taken yesterday night and this morning 2/19-2/20/2013
I decided to name them Rose and Lavender but will change if one or the other mysteriously becomes a man.
Rose:
This girl has some bloat on her and has a bit of red around her gills which I am not sure if is ammonia burn or simply coloring. Sadly she is the better case of the two of them.
Lavender "possible male due to fancy finnage"
*where is betta? :P*
Lavender here has also a bit of a stronger case of bloating. Also she struggles to reach the surface for air and does so in short sporadic burst's.
I acclimated them yesterday temp & ph and gave them a feast of blood worms just to get their strength up. I will fast them for a couple of days and see if they get better hopefully the bloat has a dietary nature and not a parasitic one. I did see some evidence of bowel movement today, it was black and slightly green but I will attribute that to the abundance of algae the store has in it's tanks "which are highly lit and oxygenated by constant heavy water movement". Each is currently in a 1.5 gallon hospital tank I scrounged up yesterday and I will have water temp readings today and will do parameter tests tomorrow.
-Paul
Check out the eBook Betta Fish Care Made Easy
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