Since getting into the hobby last summer, I've had countless bettas. The oldest lived with my for 9 months before passing, and many died after only a few months.
My water is always double zeros with low nitrates. The fish get Atison's Betta Pro, Hikari Betta Bio Gold, bloodworms, brineshrimp and the occassional bit of pea. The tanks are heated to 27C and the bettas are not kept with problematic tank-mates. The males are kept alone (apart from one who lives with ADFs) and the females are were kept with corys and neon tetras (now corys and otos).
The only problem I can find is that my water is 'very hard' with a pH of around 8. Before getting bettas I was assured by countless people that bettas were hardy, would be fine in harder water, often bred in hard water, etc etc. I wasn't going to get bettas after I read they were a soft water species but was encouraged to get one as apparently they are very adaptable, etc. Not in my experience!
I have have lost the following bettas:
Orion, Ffinsan, Cygnus, Nightshade, Marble, Boann, Fenrir, Lillith, Rei, KT, Azrael, Aurora, Amalthea, Osiris, Howl, Deimos and 5 un-named females. I may have lost more but my memory isn't serving me well today.
Some died to columnaris and I don't believe this was my fault as they died very soon after coming home from the shop (and in one case took out some of my healthy stock). This strain of columnaris was highly contagious and killed before treatment was able to work. Most died to something like dropsy, or that presented dropsy-like symptoms - abdominal swelling, pine-coning, restlessness (and no interest in food) and lethargy. Deimos just wasted away, going from a spectacular red, black, blue and white marble HM to a little, grey drab thing with fragile fins.
I rarely get an easy to identify, treatable disease. No fin-rot or ich to speak of, no identifiable parasites, no velvet, no ulcers or fungus. Nothing other than this wasting away and then dropsy (in most cases). Th only symptom that all bettas share (even the healthy ones) is fragile fins. Not fin-rot - no blackness, redness or fungus - but fins that don't seem up to much and tear easily. The only boy with decent fins is my PK! The girls don't seem to suffer from this, though.
I've now stopped buying bettas. At one point I had 9-10 males and a sorority, all in excellent tanks with loads of plants, 3-5 gallons of space each, warm water, great food - the works. Now I have 5 males and 3 females, if you exclude my little batch of rescues that I hope to move on once they have grown a bit. I want to keep bettas seriously but I find I am prevented by this fishy Grim Reaper that seems to haunt my house. Even though I know I am doing the best I can, it hurts to know that so many bettas have died in my care. I feel like a failure and that I must be unwittingly abusing my pets for so many to have died. Even idiots who keep their bettas in 1 gallon, unfiltered tubs with no water changes and only plant roots to eat seem to have more luck than me.
So, someone help shed some light on this. Does anyone here keep bettas in hard water? How long do they seem to live? Any symptoms when they die?
My water is always double zeros with low nitrates. The fish get Atison's Betta Pro, Hikari Betta Bio Gold, bloodworms, brineshrimp and the occassional bit of pea. The tanks are heated to 27C and the bettas are not kept with problematic tank-mates. The males are kept alone (apart from one who lives with ADFs) and the females are were kept with corys and neon tetras (now corys and otos).
The only problem I can find is that my water is 'very hard' with a pH of around 8. Before getting bettas I was assured by countless people that bettas were hardy, would be fine in harder water, often bred in hard water, etc etc. I wasn't going to get bettas after I read they were a soft water species but was encouraged to get one as apparently they are very adaptable, etc. Not in my experience!
I have have lost the following bettas:
Orion, Ffinsan, Cygnus, Nightshade, Marble, Boann, Fenrir, Lillith, Rei, KT, Azrael, Aurora, Amalthea, Osiris, Howl, Deimos and 5 un-named females. I may have lost more but my memory isn't serving me well today.
Some died to columnaris and I don't believe this was my fault as they died very soon after coming home from the shop (and in one case took out some of my healthy stock). This strain of columnaris was highly contagious and killed before treatment was able to work. Most died to something like dropsy, or that presented dropsy-like symptoms - abdominal swelling, pine-coning, restlessness (and no interest in food) and lethargy. Deimos just wasted away, going from a spectacular red, black, blue and white marble HM to a little, grey drab thing with fragile fins.
I rarely get an easy to identify, treatable disease. No fin-rot or ich to speak of, no identifiable parasites, no velvet, no ulcers or fungus. Nothing other than this wasting away and then dropsy (in most cases). Th only symptom that all bettas share (even the healthy ones) is fragile fins. Not fin-rot - no blackness, redness or fungus - but fins that don't seem up to much and tear easily. The only boy with decent fins is my PK! The girls don't seem to suffer from this, though.
I've now stopped buying bettas. At one point I had 9-10 males and a sorority, all in excellent tanks with loads of plants, 3-5 gallons of space each, warm water, great food - the works. Now I have 5 males and 3 females, if you exclude my little batch of rescues that I hope to move on once they have grown a bit. I want to keep bettas seriously but I find I am prevented by this fishy Grim Reaper that seems to haunt my house. Even though I know I am doing the best I can, it hurts to know that so many bettas have died in my care. I feel like a failure and that I must be unwittingly abusing my pets for so many to have died. Even idiots who keep their bettas in 1 gallon, unfiltered tubs with no water changes and only plant roots to eat seem to have more luck than me.
So, someone help shed some light on this. Does anyone here keep bettas in hard water? How long do they seem to live? Any symptoms when they die?
I used to change a minimum of 50% every week and used amquel plus to neutralise ammonia etc. 
I have had water company issues in the past....and recently and it tends to only cause issues with fish that are either slightly off 100% or sensetive. I've lost bettas to bad water (not mine, but what came from the tap). If you can watch your water companies activity in the area and avoiding changing water on days they're doing work etc. Beyond that, there's little you can do....except check the tap water stats b4 adding it to the tank.
