Emergency! Help!

[BettaBob]

Let me start with saying i have an aqua tech 5-15 filter on my 5 gallon tank. The filter is way to strong for my betta so i found a way to use a part of a soda bottle to cover the outflow. it worked great for a while but today i came home and somehow the tape holding it up fell off. I did not think much of it at the time and just put it back but i noticed tonight when i got home CR was looking really stressed and beat up :(. I also noticed one of his pectoral fins was completely ripped off. I feel absolutely terrible and sorry for the little guy. I did a water change and added some salt to help with healing but i have two questions. Do bettas fins grow back at all? and if not will he be okay missing one of these fins? Also does anybody have another method of stopping the flow of my filter? this really scared me and i NEVER want this to happen again. I just hope he is okay.

[Mister Sparkle]

1) Yes

2) Sponge filter

8)

[BettaBob]

thanks for the quick reply! thats good to hear he should be okay! But what exactly is a sponge filter? I am somewhat new to the fish world.

[Kittles]

Indeed, as Mister Sparkle said, they do grow back. How well, though, depends on how mangled it became - sometimes they just don't grow back to look how they used to.

As for the filter, I'm sure Sparkle will share plenty of knowledge about the sponge filter. But, should you continue to use your current filter, I might as well inform you that there are other ways of anchoring that curl of plastic. From this picture I stole (http://www.bettafish.com/showthread.php?t=30139), you can see that Big Oki uses a fishing weight to anchor it, obviously a more stable alternative to most tapes.


That being said, what kind of tape were you using to begin with? I'm sure a strip of duct tape would be pretty solid. Also, I swear I read on here somewhere that somebody uses a plastic sandwich bag. How, I don't know. I could be lying. Maybe a plant below the waterfall would prove more effective.

And lastly, what if you baffled the intake? Wouldn't that lessen the outflow to some degree? And if you raised the water level enough, there'd be almost no current at all, right? You could put a sponge, or pantyhose toe over the intake, as seen here: http://www.bettafish.com/showthread.php?t=35469.

[Mister Sparkle]

A sponge filter is the best $7 you'll ever spend! Just hook an air pump up to it, and the air is drawn through the base of the filter. It exits through a "snorkel", which draws water with it. The water is mechanically filtered through a sponge, which happens to have TONS of surface are for beneficial bacteria. No need to replace filter media. You just squeeze the sponge out in a bucket of old aquarium water about once a week, and put it right back in the aquarium. All the old crud is disposed of, and the good bacteria stays right where you want it!

Here's mine, in the background of Phineas' nano...


The best thing about the sponge filter is that you can get practically no water movement whatsoever! Just fill up the aquarium to a point just below the tip of the snorkel.

[Kittles]

Quick sidenote here: Is it just me, or is anybody else unable to view Mister Sparkle's picture attachments? (Couldn't see the one posted in Joe's thread, either)

[Mister Sparkle]

Originally Posted by Kittles

Quick sidenote here: Is it just me, or is anybody else unable to view Mister Sparkle's picture attachments? (Couldn't see the one posted in Joe's thread, either)

Wha???? Can you see it in my album?

[Mister Sparkle]

does it work this way?

[Kittles]

Negative. They do show up in your albums though. When I attach a picture, I first upload it to www.tinypic.com, copy the direct file link, and then add it to my post using the "Insert Image" feature from the selections above. There may be a way to share directly from your album, but I'm only familiar with the former method.

Maybe you can go to your album > view any picture > right click > copy image location > paste into "Insert Image" feature pop-up. I'll give it a shot now: testing, testing. One, two, three:



How are you attempting to attach your files? Also, BettaBob, excuse me for this. I'll have a moderator delete these posts and take this chat to private message or something >_>

[soleilvie]

Kittles, are you trying to view the attachments from the bettafish forum or the tropicalfishkeeping forum? I am able to view the pictures just fine but I noticed I had this problem when I was only on the bettafish forum.