srikantmarakani
New Member
I had just cycled my tank (fishless) and thought I would get a few zebra danios since I had read they were easy first fish. I wanted to start slow since I had started with two fancy goldfish in a 10g tank given by my officemate which ended up as a disaster since I had absolutely no idea how to keep fish 
and did everything possible wrong (100% water changes, washing all the gravel/decorations and filter in tap water thoroughly etc.) 
.
Not everything went to plan as I couldn't resist getting a small female royal blue betta too from the lfs. They are so cute
. So far, she (Amphitrite) swims about reasonably eagerly, plays with the bubble curtain when I switch it on and flares often but she also doesn't eat much and spits out a lot of the food. She has also lost a bit of colour. The only thing she actually eats are bloodworms. She might try some of the other stuff (tropical flakes, shrimp pellets, wardley betta food) but immediately spits it out. My lfs only carries Wardley betta food which I have read is horrible so that might be part of the reason. I have orderd some betta bio-gold but it will take some time to arrive. Also, while the zebras are largely peaceful, they tend to get at the food much faster and even snatch it away from her sometimes (they are -much- faster than the betta 
). She also tends to keep looking around the gravel (I have assorted rocks and pebbles rather than the uniformly sized aquarium gravel) which seems odd for a betta.
I hope her near hunger strike is just temporary. Maybe it is just stress from moving? My water parameters are fine - 0 ammonia, 0 nitrites, 30-40 ppm nitrates (slightly high as I didn't do a 100% water change after cycling), pH 8.0 (slightly high but same as at lfs), KH 7 dH.
and did everything possible wrong (100% water changes, washing all the gravel/decorations and filter in tap water thoroughly etc.) .Not everything went to plan as I couldn't resist getting a small female royal blue betta too from the lfs. They are so cute
. So far, she (Amphitrite) swims about reasonably eagerly, plays with the bubble curtain when I switch it on and flares often but she also doesn't eat much and spits out a lot of the food. She has also lost a bit of colour. The only thing she actually eats are bloodworms. She might try some of the other stuff (tropical flakes, shrimp pellets, wardley betta food) but immediately spits it out. My lfs only carries Wardley betta food which I have read is horrible so that might be part of the reason. I have orderd some betta bio-gold but it will take some time to arrive. Also, while the zebras are largely peaceful, they tend to get at the food much faster and even snatch it away from her sometimes (they are -much- faster than the betta ). She also tends to keep looking around the gravel (I have assorted rocks and pebbles rather than the uniformly sized aquarium gravel) which seems odd for a betta. I hope her near hunger strike is just temporary. Maybe it is just stress from moving? My water parameters are fine - 0 ammonia, 0 nitrites, 30-40 ppm nitrates (slightly high as I didn't do a 100% water change after cycling), pH 8.0 (slightly high but same as at lfs), KH 7 dH.
). For now keep giving her the bloodworms, they're not dried, are they? If so, try and get some frozen, they're much better.
/www.bettatalk.com/food.htm
) when I feed it bloodworms so I am doing that every alternate day now. Also, it seems I have been overfeeding them (the zebras also love them) with bloodworms since for their sizes 20-30 bloodworms is apparently a more than decent meal. The first time I fed them bloodworms I actually added a whole thawed cube (probably around a hundred worms) which even to me looked obviously way too much 
