Sick Betta

[-germ-]

Chuckie, if you do buy a new Betta for your son (hope he's ok) i would certainly reccomend asking the store to confirm their PH for you, do this without informing them of your PH on the offchance they would verbally match their own to yours, in the pursuit of an easy sale.
Another thing that could be looked into would be acclimatising, when you added him to your tank, did you get home and add him directly? Or did you float the bag and possibly drip acclimatise him?
I'm only guessing, as without hard evidence, i always will be, most of the symptoms are fairly open to interpretation but my opinion is that your Bettas illness was somehow related to his osmoregulatory function.
If so, its worth checking all the angles to prevent this from happening again. There may have been no cause attributable to yourself, he may have been ill when purchased.
I certainly wouldn't feel guilty, Betta and many other tropical fish experience much worse care and effort than you obviously did your best to supply.I felt guilty about my first fish deaths, but later traced some buyers (on this site) who had purchased the same fish from the same supplier, nearly all had died with the same symptoms, so there was obviously a serious illness traceable back to the breeder or fish shop.
Maybe this is worth looking into....
Anyway, hope you and your son are ok.
GB

 

[chuckie]

Hi,
Son was devastated this morning and says he doesnt EVER want another one.. I'm sure he will change his mind at some stage.
I floated the bag for about half an hour and then added small amounts of the tank water to his bag ever 20 minutes after.
I will check with the lfs for their PH for verification and will do what others have suggested and disinfect the tank before anything else is added.
I feel sure he will want another fish so will start from scratch again.

For reference purposes, is it worth cycling the tank for longer as it was 6 weeks before i added the betta, is it worth perhaps putting in danio's after cycling as a first fish then i can transfer them to my big tank in a couple of months time before possibly adding a new betta?
Thanks for reply
Jane

 

[rdd1952]

It's relatively easy to cycle a betta tank. They don't produce a lot of waste. All you really need to do is add some filter media from you other tank to the filter of the betta tank and you will pretty much be cycled immediately. If you have any pure ammonia, after you add the filter media, you could add enough ammonia to raise the level to about 1ppm and see how long that takes for it to process back out to ammonia and nitite. If it'sin the 10 to 12 hour range, you are ready for the betta as they shouldnt produce any more waste han that in a day.

 

[chuckie]

It's relatively easy to cycle a betta tank. They don't produce a lot of waste. All you really need to do is add some filter media from you other tank to the filter of the betta tank and you will pretty much be cycled immediately. If you have any pure ammonia, after you add the filter media, you could add enough ammonia to raise the level to about 1ppm and see how long that takes for it to process back out to ammonia and nitite. If it'sin the 10 to 12 hour range, you are ready for the betta as they shouldnt produce any more waste han that in a day.

Ok, many thanks for your reply. I will start from scratch and wait until my son is ready for another betta.

Thanks once again for everyones help/advise over the past few days

Jane