# new bettas! A neat find and a rescue... and guppies



## egoreise (Mar 16, 2011)

Alright... so it's been a busy week n' a half. First, I stumbled across some leapord fantail guppies at the LFS. I couldn't resist them, I've wanted some for quite some time. (I put them in my 15 gallon hex, which has been all set up and cycled, just waiting for me to order some pea puffers...) So I brought home 4 females and 2 males. On their second night, one female and one male died, and another female gave birth. I waited one week and then bought two more, and did a much slower acclimation process where I slowly added water from the tank into their bags, and then netted them out. I suspect the first two died from ph shock. These ones are doing fine. In fact, the new female gave birth! Anyway... completely off topic....

Three days after that, I went to pick up my little sister (PsychoFish), and we stopped at my favorite aquarium store in Bozeman. I found a BEAUTIFUL black betta! They called him a black fighter, but I'm not entirely sure that is the real name... I could use some help IDing him... They wanted $30 but I got him for $20. He's very difficult to photograph because he's feisty. And he doesn't have a name yet. He went into a 10 gallon intended for blue pearl shrimp that I haven't ordered yet... see a pattern here?  As soon as I come across another tank, he's getting a new tank that will show off his color best.




















Just a few days after I picked him up, my boyfriend's brother's fiance contacted me. A month or two ago, I had helped her set up a tank. She had three platies and a betta. Within a week, two of her platies had died. Now she was asking me if I would just take her tank home. Her remaining fish had badly frayed fins and she couldn't afford to do anything about it.
So I brought Mr. Handsome and the platy home... Mr. Handsome's fins were badly shredded, and turning brown at the ends where they used to be really pretty and clear. You could no longer tell he was a veiltail. His body went from white to red. The platy had one ich spot and chunks missing from her tailfin. The fiance told me she had been doing 20% water changes every week, and I found that the water really was very clean, with hardly any waste in the gravel. I suspect mold spores from the air or their kitchen sink. One silk plant had black spots forming on it that didn't look like algae. So I put them in a bucket and brought the tank home. Discarded the gravel and left the one silk plant out. Sanitized everything else with scalding hot water and vinegar. Redid the whole tank. Carefully netted them and sanitized the bucket and net. Got them acclimated and added a 1/2 teaspoon of salt for four days, and am doing a 1/5th teaspoon Melafix for 7 days. Also doing daily or every other day water changes of 30% - 50% because of the fact the tank has to cycle all over again.
Fish are showing some improvement. The fins on the platy are all healed up, but her behavior is very odd. She's still swimming with her nose pointed up and often resting at the bottom of the tank. In this picture, Mr. Handsome looks a great deal more healthy than he did when I picked him up. But he has a ways to go still. One day, I caught him gasping. I removed about half the sand I had used as substrate, in case it was from toxic pockets. I plan on adding malaysian trumpet snails in a few days.









What I really wish you all could see is that he has a brilliant blue glimmer in his eyes. Just beautiful...


Oh.. and just for fun, a new picture of Babyface. He was sick and has almost completely recovered. He looks fine and loves to flare and build bubble nests again, and his fins are almost completely back to normal... but he is still weak. He gets stuck to the filter if I don't cover the intake tube. And when I cover it, it runs so poorly there's no water flow at all... and there are tank mates still waiting to be reintroduced. So I ordered him a sponge filter.


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## funlad3 (Oct 9, 2010)

Nice black betta! I vote Shadow as its name. :fun:


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## egoreise (Mar 16, 2011)

Thanks! That would be a fitting name!


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## Betta man (Mar 25, 2011)

congrats! I'm jealous. Not because they look GREAT! Because they'll probably live over 2 months unlike my last 4 bettas which died within 1 month. Mine just died today within the last 2 hours.. I'm sad! he was such a beauty! Good luck!


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## egoreise (Mar 16, 2011)

Awww I'm sorry Betta Man.


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## Betta man (Mar 25, 2011)

Same here. My new custom title is cursed fish killer, but I'm changing it to, THE cursed fish killer.


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## Betta man (Mar 25, 2011)

I have a feeling that your fish that looks like a crowntail will become a halfmoon or delta tail...


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## egoreise (Mar 16, 2011)

You mean the middle one? He was totally a veiltail... I have a picture somewhere of him before his fins got shredded... he stayed at my house while her tank was being set up.


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## LoriL (Jun 19, 2011)

So I was reading your post and noticed you're from Bozeman. I was there for a conference last month. It's beautiful there. I tried hiking the big M but chose the wrong path and didn't make it all the way up  

Good luck with the new additions!


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## egoreise (Mar 16, 2011)

Hello! And thank you
It is beautiful! But I actually live in Billings. My mum and sister live near Bozeman because it's the ideal place to get the ball rolling on Mum's art career.


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## Betta man (Mar 25, 2011)

I mean this one...


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## egoreise (Mar 16, 2011)

Uh... no he's a crowntail.


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## hXcChic22 (Dec 26, 2009)

That's definitely a full-on crowntail, not a shredded delta or HM.


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## egoreise (Mar 16, 2011)

http://www.fishforums.com/forum/album.php?albumid=514&pictureid=4013


That's Babyface when I first brought him home. His fins are damaged now, but they've also gotten longer and heavier. Also,in the new pic, he's not flaring. That's just how he looks when he's alert. Flaring,his tail fin is more spread out so you can definitely see he's a crowntail.


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## egoreise (Mar 16, 2011)

funlad3 said:


> Nice black betta! I vote Shadow as its name. :fun:


I decided on Ozzy, the Prince of ****ing Darkness... But you can just call him Ozzy. :lol:


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## funlad3 (Oct 9, 2010)

That name works much better. Congrats on Ozzy!


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## Zane_uverworld (Jun 19, 2011)

i vote the name to be kage it's japanese for shadow. how about kuro no kage, means shadow of that which is dark


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## egoreise (Mar 16, 2011)

That would be cool, too!


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## Guest (Jun 28, 2011)

The black one is a fighter, also know as pk
Those r use to play the sport fish fighting.
That is y the fish was $30, ppl will fight them n bid money on the fish.

I wouldnt pay $20 for it, can get those for $5 each.


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## PhsychoFish (Apr 10, 2011)

Anti-YellowFins is his name!!! *drools*


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## egoreise (Mar 16, 2011)

ForMany said:


> The black one is a fighter, also know as pk
> Those r use to play the sport fish fighting.
> That is y the fish was $30, ppl will fight them n bid money on the fish.
> 
> I wouldnt pay $20 for it, can get those for $5 each.


$20 is a good price around here, for anything different. We literally only have crowntails and veiltails available within a 300 mile radius.


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## Betta man (Mar 25, 2011)

They're nice! I like the plakat!


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## humdedum (Feb 18, 2009)

Lucky you! I need to start buying more 10 gallons so I can pick more pretty bettas.  I am not satisfied with only one!


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## egoreise (Mar 16, 2011)

Thanks, Betta Man. Humdedum, ten gallons are a dime a dozen... start looking for freebies and used ones! I haven't paid for any of my four... but I did get one for my mum and sister, complete with the light fixture, for $5 at the thrift store.


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