I was hoping that someone could offer some advice for me. I rescued a betta fish about a year ago from a home that did not know how to take care of him.. he was pale, undernourished, etc. I brought him back to life and he is the nicest betta fish I have ever met. We just moved to Colorado (from AZ) and he's been fine here as well. But I decided to get a heater because it can get very cold here... I purchased a 2.5gal tank, some new rocks (mixed them with the old rocks) and a heater. Unfortunately, I didn't realize it at the time -- but I had purchased a heater that was too large of a watt for his tank.. it quickly heated up and he endured a huge temperature shift. The snail that I had in there started to secrete a strange slimey substance... Ian (my betta) started looking droopy.. we cleaned the water, took out the snail, and put him back. Still not good... we realized the heater wasn't right so we went back and purchased a better, more expensive heater. We transferred him to the bowl and kept the temperature at 72.. and he was doing great.. it was amazing. Then I purchased a plant (anachrias? the fish store said it would be fine for bettas....) and I put it in there.. it clouded up the water overnight and he started acting bad again. So we cleaned the water.. called the fish store and they said to make sure the plant isn't dead, clean the tank and the plant and put it back in so we did... but no real improvement in him. We are removing the plant and putting him in his fish bowl now (we had him in a large glass "goldfish" bowl before we transferred him to his new home) to see how he does.. I considered also purchasing some Stress Coat.
Here are his symptoms: turning very gray on his face/under his face... losing color in his body......... seems very listless.. he usually greets us with enthusiasm when we come near his tank... but he isn't doing that now... he just "sits" there..
Any advice?
Also.. the heater keeps it at 72 and it gets to about 75 at night because of the temp. in the house
we ALWAYS treat the water... actually, I don't know if it needs to be mentioned, but we just switched to a different water treatment (after he started getting sick because we ran out of the other and that brand doesn't seem to be sold here). It is called AmQuel+.
We also got test strips to test the water... the ph is excellent in the treated water, I don't know what the ph is just for plain tap water.. but we always treat the water. We tested the nitrites and they are about .75
We were doing weekly water changes, but since the transfer to the 2.5gal tank and all the problems we've had, we had to do several water changes
I asked how long the previous owners had him and they thought maybe 6 months but possibly less. We've had Ian for a bit over a year now.. so he is possibly 1 1/2 years.. but also we don't know how long the store had him before they purchased him...
He was doing fine before we purchased the heater and the new tank...
Here are his symptoms: turning very gray on his face/under his face... losing color in his body......... seems very listless.. he usually greets us with enthusiasm when we come near his tank... but he isn't doing that now... he just "sits" there..
Any advice?
Also.. the heater keeps it at 72 and it gets to about 75 at night because of the temp. in the house
we ALWAYS treat the water... actually, I don't know if it needs to be mentioned, but we just switched to a different water treatment (after he started getting sick because we ran out of the other and that brand doesn't seem to be sold here). It is called AmQuel+.
We also got test strips to test the water... the ph is excellent in the treated water, I don't know what the ph is just for plain tap water.. but we always treat the water. We tested the nitrites and they are about .75
We were doing weekly water changes, but since the transfer to the 2.5gal tank and all the problems we've had, we had to do several water changes
I asked how long the previous owners had him and they thought maybe 6 months but possibly less. We've had Ian for a bit over a year now.. so he is possibly 1 1/2 years.. but also we don't know how long the store had him before they purchased him...
He was doing fine before we purchased the heater and the new tank...
