The only place I've found daphnia except online is freeze dried in petsmart. Their should be a little "betta end cap" where they have small heaters. betta flakes, betta water conditioner, betta medicine, and betta resting leaves and floating logs. Don't buy any of these items (save a resting leaf or floating log if you really want as everything else there is useless). However, on this display, I found a little red disc with compartmented freeze dried tubifex worms, mysis, and daphnia! All are freeze dried and in a red disc container that you spin to open. If you can find one you will need to soak the freeze dried foods in a small cup of tank water for a few minutes (usually 5 does it for me) to rehydrate the food. My betta eats about three pieces before I stop and he does just fine with these.
Another thing you can do is call around your local pet stores, or even family business ones, and ask if they have any frozen daphnia they may carry. I've seen none in my local petsmart but yours might have some.
i'll go look at petsmart. that's probably where i'll get it from if i can't find any live cultures in the US. i really do appreciate the help.
You could also buy a bit of Anubias and attach it to the side of the tank near to top with a suction cup.
what does anubias do? also, was that picture just to provide an idea? it doesn't appear that the plant in the image is actually real, and i'd assume you'd be talking about adding a live plant. another question - i haven't done much research on anubias themselves, but if i were to put one in my tank, wouldn't i need to add co2, plant supplements, and appropriate lighting? that sounds like a lot for just one plant. i feel like this might be a post put in the wrong place, and if it is i'm taking it a little too seriously. lol. in the case that it was intentional, answers would help me out a lot.
Water changes are a place to start, you can use carbon filter, but, its more about the medication going through a fishes body. You have to wait a week or so- like when the doctor says you cant take one pill with another as it cancels it out or makes your ailment worse.
When did you move him? was it recent? sometimes when you move them from rubbish conditions into better conditions it can shock a fish..... weird truth!!! but, sometimes a fish is so conditioned to being in rubbish water, going straight into somewhere else can have an affect, things like the change in Ph, the temperature of the water, the change of any of the parameters can all make him feel a bit off.
Improving the water condition in the primary tank slowly until it matches the new tanks water is a way to combat this, also what others have said about adding exciting things...well exciting for the beta to do can reduce stress.
You can buy daphnia online, Im in the UK so I don't know about the US, but I am sure you can buy a live culture and keep them separately, it works the same way as fish, when they come float the bag, add some water and keep them in a conditioned container- no need for a whole new tank, just get a jar with some water from the tank in it. Use a pipette to suck them up and put them in the main tank.
Live is always better than frozen, but frozen is good if you cant find live. Soak the frozen for 3 mins in tank water then add it to the main tank.
With the velvet, have you tried keeping him in the dark? raise the temp just a tiny bit, put a cloth over the tank to block out any external light-this helps because velvet loves light- it thrives in the light and needs it for its life cycle. no light no life!!
Also put in an Indian Almond leaf for its anti bacterial properties- You can buy this online with the daphnia- I usually get all of my fishy stuff from ebay, and use the most recent medication that you used before to treat the velvet thats hanging around (so You dont have to wait a week to treat him), without the light new velvet cant develop. Feed live daphnia if you can get hold of some. Do this for for a week, check him and if he still has velvet keep him in the dark until its gone and then add a couple of more days.
Do water changes as normal, or as its instructed on the medication leaflet.
Hope this helps
i don't have a filter either (getting one of them soon too), meaning water changes are definitely still something i need to do while treating him. i don't have to worry about carbon then, though. i don't know if i'll even use any in the new filter.
as i said, i think i moved him about a year ago. maybe a few months less. i wasn't fully aware of certain things when i moved him - i also just wanted him to stay alive, dang it - which was a bit irresponsible, i'd have to say. i did a little "water change" in his tiny tank, then brought the 5 gallon upstairs, rinsed it, checked for cracks, and started filling it. i put some of the old, nasty water in his tank, but i don't know if it did any better since it wasn't much and i was worried about adding too much ammonia to the water. i was worried he would be in too much shock and would die, but he obviously handled it somehow. like i said before, i don't remember when he got his fin rot or velvet. i don't know if he got it when he was brought home, while he was in the tiny tank, or after i moved him. i didn't even know velvet existed at that time, i don't think.
yes, i do know about the higher temps and the darkness. he has had a towel over his tank the entire time i've been treating with Cupramine and the heater is set as high as it can go (which really isn't that high, sadly). haven't heard about the almond leaf remedy, though. i'll be sure to look for both the daphnia and the almond leaf online, and i'll hope they do something for him. the medication actually says to leave the concentration of medicine in the water for 14 days (someone on the forum helped me understand that), but without that filter i'm especially worried about not doing water changes for a full 2 weeks. i was told how i could do water changes without messing up the concentration (by that same member), though, so we're all good there.
