Is my betta sick? New and need help!

[mooghoul]

I’m new to fish and need some guidance. This is the end of my first week with my betta. He has a 5 gallon tank that came with a filter, and he has a 50 watt heater that is preset to 78. He has a couple live plants and a snail. Once I picked him out from the pet store and took him home I learned about fishless cycling which hadn’t been mentioned to me and started to panic. I looked around online for advice and ended up putting some of my brother’s filter media (he has an established tank) in my tank for a bit and put my betta in 24 hours later. The water was conditioned and I added one of those bacteria starter things. In the past two days, he has been spending a lot of time at the top of the tank. He has no trouble swimming or going to the bottom of the tank and he does so occasionally. But he just chooses to stay up there. He also eats fine (beta crumble?) but I’m scared to overfeed him because of the swim bladder thing so I give him just a little once a day. I did a 50% water change yesterday.

pH: 7.5
Total Alkalinity: 180
Tota hardness: 75
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 0
Ammonia: between 0-0.25?? I used the API test. After looking around I guess this test is notoriously hard to read…. but it’s what I have for now.

I don’t know what I’m doing! I’m really trying my best to do everything right. I don’t know if this is normal behavior or not. Please help!

 

[Colin_T]

Hi and welcome to the forum

Adding some filter media from your brother's tank should help get your filter going faster

The fish has a little bit of excess mucous over its body and fins and this is usually caused by something in the water irritating it. The best remedy for excess mucous is big daily water changes for a week. Just change 50-75% of the tank water every day for a week and see if it helps.
Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it's added to the tank.

Bettas naturally live near the surface so it's a good idea to have some live floating plants for them. Water Sprite is the best plant for them and can be grown on the surface or planted in the gravel.