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My red spade-tail female's name is Higgs, named after the Higgs Boson because she darts around and swims like a maniac, kind of at the speed of a walking Higgs Boson (nerd joke). I swear to god that she only stops to take a breath right before she passes out. I don't know if she forgets or she genuinely has fish-ADHD.
I've checked the water, and there's no NH3 or NH4, ammonia levels are 0ppm, harness is 4 (I live in north Alabama, and there's enough limestone here to prevent heartburn for the population of a small country (chemistry joke), so it's hard to control the hardness without dropping or raising the pH, but there's no point in that really, because the pH is already a 6.5-7, and plus controlling the pH without a pre-measured tablet is f*cking hard.They can also chemically burn your fish if they're in the tank when you add all that crap, so take your fish OUT before you attempt to become a chemist (not a joke).)
I clean her tank regularly, but during her time with me (since April 2012) she's lived in that teeny cup in PetSmart, a 1 gallon tank with another betta, a molly, and a cichlid (hey, I was a beginner and I thought it looked pretty. Sue me.), a 1 gallon vase by herself (and not covered with a plant and forced to eat the bitter ends on the gross plant roots. Actually she was not covered at all, and I fed her (and still feed her) freeze-dried and frozen mysis; none of my bettas, including her, will eat pellets or flakes of any kind. They won't eat bloodworms either, and some of them will eat tubifex worms, and some will eat beefhart, but they won't eat both. Feeding is very difficult.), a 3 gallon tank by herself, a 15 gallon tank with 4 other female bettas (and got into a terrible fish fight, more on this later) and now she lives in a Fluval Chi 5 gal tank by herself.
All that time, she's been the most active fish I own. I mean, she makes Michael Phelps look like a sperm cell. She won't jump out of her tank (because she's actually a really intelligent fish, too. I mean, seriously, scarily intelligent. She's so devious.). I can't quite get over her activity level, and I've given her caves and toys and plants to hide in, but she rarely swims to the bottom. It's almost, and this is weird, like she was a human in her past life and was reincarnated as a fish. Now she's trying to get out of her tank, and she's so nosy that she'll swim to the side of the tank like she wants me to notice her, then she'll swim away, but only come up to the side again when I begin talking again. Nosy fish.
Oh, and then when I tried to create a sorority tank in my 15 gal with 5 bettas, she flipped her sh*t and chased and nipped every one of the girls. Not only that, she would steal food from the rest of them (I think 3 of them were plakats/wild bettas from Walmart (Sybil, Frances, Temperance), maybe a year old, and the 4th was a veiltail female, named Parcy.), and generaly was a bully. I come home one day, and her, Parcy, and Sybil's fins are SHREDDED. I mean, paper-shredder shredded. Higgs was missing literally HALF of her anal fin was missing, and her beautiful velvety tail was in pieces, so I isolated her in the Chi 5 gal. I later isolated Parcy (she was beaten to hell) in a babybio tank, but I left Sybil in the tank because she was ok with the other bettas).
I don't who started the fight but Higgs is a terrorist.
Any methods of calming down this fish would be helpful. Oh, and by the way, her diet consists of freeze-dried mysis, frozen mysis, and beefheart. She won't eat anything else. Communist fish.
I don't blame you if you tl;dr this, either, but if you're reading this part, thanks.
I've checked the water, and there's no NH3 or NH4, ammonia levels are 0ppm, harness is 4 (I live in north Alabama, and there's enough limestone here to prevent heartburn for the population of a small country (chemistry joke), so it's hard to control the hardness without dropping or raising the pH, but there's no point in that really, because the pH is already a 6.5-7, and plus controlling the pH without a pre-measured tablet is f*cking hard.They can also chemically burn your fish if they're in the tank when you add all that crap, so take your fish OUT before you attempt to become a chemist (not a joke).)
I clean her tank regularly, but during her time with me (since April 2012) she's lived in that teeny cup in PetSmart, a 1 gallon tank with another betta, a molly, and a cichlid (hey, I was a beginner and I thought it looked pretty. Sue me.), a 1 gallon vase by herself (and not covered with a plant and forced to eat the bitter ends on the gross plant roots. Actually she was not covered at all, and I fed her (and still feed her) freeze-dried and frozen mysis; none of my bettas, including her, will eat pellets or flakes of any kind. They won't eat bloodworms either, and some of them will eat tubifex worms, and some will eat beefhart, but they won't eat both. Feeding is very difficult.), a 3 gallon tank by herself, a 15 gallon tank with 4 other female bettas (and got into a terrible fish fight, more on this later) and now she lives in a Fluval Chi 5 gal tank by herself.
All that time, she's been the most active fish I own. I mean, she makes Michael Phelps look like a sperm cell. She won't jump out of her tank (because she's actually a really intelligent fish, too. I mean, seriously, scarily intelligent. She's so devious.). I can't quite get over her activity level, and I've given her caves and toys and plants to hide in, but she rarely swims to the bottom. It's almost, and this is weird, like she was a human in her past life and was reincarnated as a fish. Now she's trying to get out of her tank, and she's so nosy that she'll swim to the side of the tank like she wants me to notice her, then she'll swim away, but only come up to the side again when I begin talking again. Nosy fish.
Oh, and then when I tried to create a sorority tank in my 15 gal with 5 bettas, she flipped her sh*t and chased and nipped every one of the girls. Not only that, she would steal food from the rest of them (I think 3 of them were plakats/wild bettas from Walmart (Sybil, Frances, Temperance), maybe a year old, and the 4th was a veiltail female, named Parcy.), and generaly was a bully. I come home one day, and her, Parcy, and Sybil's fins are SHREDDED. I mean, paper-shredder shredded. Higgs was missing literally HALF of her anal fin was missing, and her beautiful velvety tail was in pieces, so I isolated her in the Chi 5 gal. I later isolated Parcy (she was beaten to hell) in a babybio tank, but I left Sybil in the tank because she was ok with the other bettas).
I don't who started the fight but Higgs is a terrorist.
Any methods of calming down this fish would be helpful. Oh, and by the way, her diet consists of freeze-dried mysis, frozen mysis, and beefheart. She won't eat anything else. Communist fish.
I don't blame you if you tl;dr this, either, but if you're reading this part, thanks.
