Rescue Success Stories

[BettaMomma]

I want to hear rescue success stories (particularly from WalMart)!
I'll start...

JASPER
Probably my toughest rescue to date was Jasper:

It turned out he was suffering from acute viral hemmoraghic septicemia.
Here he is now:

JACK
When we got Jack, he had horrible looking fins and he was covered with cottony stuff. One of the cottony patches had started out under his scales, so some of his scales were sticking up. I tried to tell a WM employee to take care of him, but she said they don't treat them at all. He came home with us that night.
EDIT: I forgot I had taken a pic of him in his cup, so here it is (before we dumped him into his new tank):

and here he is today:

LUCKY
And then there's Lucky, the Tail-Less Wonder.
Here he was the first day:

and here's a closeup of his tail on day #9 after I brought him to the office to hang out with us:

The rest of my boys came to be with me because they had some pretty major fin rot going on.

I can't wait to hear about and see pics of other rescue stories!

 

[Kara101584]

You're a saint to the Betta world!
Those are some "lucky" fish!

 

[50000_tears]

only rescue i have ever done was AmyII(she isnt photogenic) . i got her as a small tike from walmart in saintlouis she was very skittish and had redish gils she looked messed up sooo..i bought 'er and she has been a resident since october i belive . she is still skittish..i think she was shook up by a dumbass of a worker who enjoys shakin fish....i love her she is soo girly she looks like a little girl!

 

[eudielynn]

When I got Jericho (from Walmart) I had not planned on getting any fish there. As a matter of fact, I went for cat food, and wandered over by the fish (as we all do ) They had their usual disgusting cups of bettas sitting around, but then I glanced into a tank full of neon tetras and saw a betta in the back corner of the tank. Any time he started to swim out of the corner the tetras were all over his fins nipping at him. I don't know what idiot put him in there, but at that point it did not really matter. I took the poor little guy home with me.

I didn't know anything about quarantine at the time and put him right in my community tank. The next day I noticed what looked like grains of salt on his dorsal fin near his body and his mouth looked like white cotton was growing on it. I immediately got him out of the tank and started him on meds and salt. (I got smart and checked out this web site for help ) Today he is back in the community tank and keeps everyone else in line. His fins will probably never be like new, but have grown back quite nicely.

He is very peaceful to my other fish, frogs, ghost shrimp and snail, but he doesn't allow any funny business in his tank. I have a neon blue dwarf gourami that likes to be a bully to the smaller fish sometimes. When Jericho sees this, he will swim between the gourami and the other fish and flare up. The gourami immediately backs off. Jericho never touches him, just comes between them. Isn't he smart? Sorry I don't have a camera but take my word for it, he's beautiful.

 

[BettaMomma]

He sounds like a fish I'd be a huge fan of, for many reasons!

 

[GSD]

you guys are great!i wish i could rescue but i dont think mmy parents would be too happy about me buying new betta tanks every 2 mins!

 

[BettaMomma]

I'm 30 years old and my parent think I am completely NUTS.
lol
They do support me, although my Dad laughs at me everytime I tell him a rescue story.

 

[transposia]

I just thought I'd add my Walmart doesn't have bettas! They do have other fish, and there were very few of them, but they looked to be in decent health.
Just thought I'd report one store that doesn't need to be reported! ;-)

 

[BettaMomma]

Well, that's the first bit of good news I've heard about any WalMart on this forum! yay!

 

[Kiarra]

Well, when I was out looking for a local store that carried decent females, I stumbled into one that had NO females (even though they said they did). When I found the males, all of them had fungus and fin rot and all sorts of other nasty things...except one. The one that was healthy was kind of strange-looking. A VT with a metallic pastel green body, a bright red head, and bright red fins. All of the others were VERY close to death, and he was just sitting there, waiting his turn to contract something nasty and die. I couldn't let him die there. So I bought him, and he hasn't been sick a day in his life.

His name is Duncan and he lives in my closet.

 

[cerulean]

So far we've rescued a few from many different places. Usually we tend to pick the sicker ones that need help.

Living by a miracle:

Zig Zag was found in a dirty cup at Petco with hardly any water and a LOT of fin rot. It took many months to get his fins back to somewhat normal. They aren't perfect after a year but probably never will since I agree with above, he was probably culled or whatever so there will be imperfections. He's a mottled blue and red, hates backgrounds (had to remove it lol) and is always surveying his territory.
Rainbow was found at a lfs that had a whole group of dying bettas in cups. They had just gotten a new shipment (?!!) and put Bo out so we grabbed him. He is a gorgeous rainbow color. He's a lazy fish and loves to lay and lounge on anything he can so HE keeps tearing his fins. He's very active, eats well and looks healthy. He just likes to curl up like a cat and sleep. I don't think fins were designed for that We do treat periodically with melafix just in case.
The boys are in separate 5 gallon tanks with filter (gang valve) live plants and heater. They seem very happy and are usually actively swimming and exploring, coming to the side whenever someone walks through the room. I love the 5 gallon tanks once they cycle - they're no work at all! I take a reading once a week and change a small amount of water as needed. Usually some only has to be changed every other week or so and even then the parameters are pretty much normal. Each has a snail. The water is always sparkling clean. I'll never go back to smaller tanks. We go away a bit so I never have to worry about the fish except to have someone feed them once a day.
My daughter has 6 girls she's rescued in a 10 gallon tank with a filter, live plants, rocks, decorations, heater and lots of hiding places. They were all bought from a lfs. The owner was saying how no one ever buys these girls, she'd had them for quite awhile in a tank and she was deciding what to do with them (?!), so my daughter bought them She's had them for awhile and they seem to all get along really well. Very cute when they school together around the tank. They all seem fairly laid back and social. They are all different colors.

Those that didn't make it:
Cerulean (here's your Walmart story) was found in a very dirty cup and died of ammonia poisoning. He kept trying so we kept giving medicine but sometimes? Medicine just can't fix all that's wrong, we have to remember that. If medicine could WE would all be perfectly healthy and live forever.
3 girls, Gem and Garnet (Petco) died of some really nasty fungus, and Snow (lfs) we rescued her, got her home and she died within hours.

 

[Kiarra]

I ALMOST forgot....

Flynn.... Flynn was about three months old when I found him. TINY little bright green Delta, with absolutely no tail except for two or three little tiny particles at the base. The dorsal was missing several large chunks, but the anal was mostly intact. He had arrived at the pet store that way, and the owner there was giving him and his two equally tattered brothers some great treatment. Flynn went home with me, and one of his brothers went home with a friend of mine. Flynn has since turned into a major super Delta, very close to Halfmoon, and flares and bubblenests happily. He's about five months old now, and VERY green.

It was another couple weeks before I found his other brother....

Bard. Bard is a red Delta, quite obviously the brother of Flynn due to various characteristics, though his tail span isn't nearly as impressive. His tail had been kind of "forked" due to his injuries, and still remains so, even though it has grown out quite a lot. He's happy, he's healthy, and he bubblenests just as readily as his brother.

 

[BettaMomma]

i LOVE to hear rescue stories.
You are all such wonderful people. Doesn't it make you feel good, even if you can't save one, to know that you improved their quality of life? Exponentially, even if only for a little while...

I'm heading out to help Grulla work on one tonight after work and I can't WAIT to go.
Someday when I have a very large house, I'm going to have a wall full of 2.5G tanks just waiting for more occupants. I will start out with the ones I have off the bat, and make a promise not to drag anymore home unless they're in dire need of meds, TLC or just a good place to die peacefully. Hopefully I will also be able to have an office in there so I can spend a good amount of my time with the fishes.

Someday.
Keep up the good work, people - the world is a better place out there cuz of cool people like us! B)

 

[RandomWiktor]

Oooh fun. I could post them, but I think it'd take a bit, so here, how about this link instead. It includes goldfish and bettas, sucesses and deaths:

Fish Hospice

Enjoy ^^

 

[GrullaQuarters]

BM, I'm 30 years old my mom doesn't think I'm nuts, she KNOWS I am......LOL

Hopefully this guy here will be a great story in the end!