I am new to fishkeeping, my Betta died last weekend and I want to try to figure out what went wrong before considering another fish.
She was in a Fluval spec V five gallon with a small heater, the temperature in the tank is 78. It was a planted cycle with gravel, a stone, a piece of driftwood from the local fish store, three anubias and moss. Driftwood boiled and soaked for days to waterlog. Added fish food in there and liquid fertilizer Seachem Flourish. I think cycling started sometime in December.
End of Jan parameters looked good and I got 3 blue dream shrimp from a LFS. 2 weeks later shrimp are doing well and showed no signs of stress and gave birth to a bunch of baby shrimp. I added a female koi pattern plakat betta Loki from a LFS. First night she killed a shrimp so the other two got moved to a shrimp only tank. No signs of stress, water changes once a week, gravel vacuum and glass scraping. Fed northfin Betta bits 5 pellets twice a day skipping Saturday. Zoo med dial a treat occasional snack maybe 2-3 pieces mysis is a fav, dislikes the dried bloodworms. She eats what she wants and leaves the rest, sometimes it's half her pellets sometimes it's just one. All uneaten food is immediately removed as well as any visible poo via pipette. Added catappa leaves into a silicone suction holder near the top of the tank so Loki had a place to rest, this is near the anubias so this is a favorite place to hang out and peek from in-between the leaves.
Struggled with algae, first tried physical removal with a toothbrush, then removed driftwood and scrubbed with peroxide, thoroughly rinsed, sun dried, soaked in dechlorinated water and returned to the tank. The driftwood initially smelled like rotten eggs but less after subsequent cleaning, not sure if this contributed to the algae. Plants had algae scrubbed off the leaves on weekly water change for months. Perimeters stayed stable during this time: 0 ammonia, 0 nitrites and fluctuating 5-10 nitrates tested weekly initially with the API kit. Close to 50% 2 gallons roughly changed every week at this point. Got a timer and normalized photo period to 8 hours. Removed moss due to the algae added staurogyne repens and tablet fertilizer. Tried Brazilian pennywort but it didn't thrive and was ultimately removed. Added a nano anubias and it was too difficult to clean the algae off and ended up in the shrimp tank, they do a way better job of cleaning. All new plants are cleaned in a solution of peroxide when I unpack and quarantined in dechlorinated water in a vase for weeks before it went into the tank. Algae situation was getting worse and started using seachem excel in May 2.5ml on water change days, 0.5 in the morning daily, later increased to 1ml daily. Added a piece of cardboard to limit the light to help with the algae and provide her with privacy and shade. This improved the algae situation and water changes were changed to once every two weeks so there's less disturbance. Excel is reduced to every other day.
About two months ago she started flaring at her food, spitting it out, watching it sink and then ignoring it. Bought Fluvial bug bites and Omega betta buffet pellets rotating every other day and she was a fan. The past month she had been going to bed early, sleeping in the leaf near the surface and had been skipping evening feedings twice a week. I don't wake her to feed. Occasionally she'll wake up and do the food dance: peeks out of the leaves to see who it is and swims up to the front of the tank and swim in 3 tight vertical circles against the glass and waits by the surface for me to turn off the filter and drop food in. After feeding if I'm not prompt to turn the filter back on she hangs out by the nozzle looking at it and looking at me, even if I'm still picking up food/poop. After that she goes about her business guarding the tank and looking at plants.
Overall she was really healthy, solid vibrant colors, the iridescent blue spread over her fins as she got older. One time something happened to her tail fin like a scratch, it looked white but healed in days on its own and returned to iridescent coloration quickly. She's super curious and swims up to the vacuum to watch the gravel tumble, it made cleaning slow but cute. Always swims directly under the plant I'm trying to vacuum so I just have to wait. Came close to inspect my hands when I'm cleaning the glass. Inspected new plants, while planting the staurogyne repens she wanted to inspect every stem I planted by swimming under them. She followed my finger outside the tank and if she missed food I could point at it and she'd swim over and eat it. I did not expect this kind of personality from a fish.
I've left her alone over the weekend in the past on 3 separate occasions with no food and no problems. Thursday morning was fine she was active, coloration looked good and nothing out of the ordinary, excited for food and ate most of her pellets. Thursday night she went to bed early so she skipped that meal. Friday morning she didn't come out when I approached and looked a little swollen, uncomfortable and kept looking away. She stayed close to her bed not swimming around but did move around changing positions. Her coloration was less solid; the black scales looked a little lighter. She had a strange bag shaped poo hanging off of her a couple days ago and I hadn't picked up any poo recently. I did a little research and the best match was potentially constipation. Most sites say to skip meals for 3 days and feed a peeled cooked pea. Checked water just in case, nitrite 0, ammonia 0, nitrates looked a little high at around 10-15 and did a quick 25% water change/vacuum before I left. She struggled a little when I did this. She swam around a little but floated immediately and returned to her bed after the water level came up. Fins weren't clamped, they were open and relaxed.
I came home Sunday afternoon. She was moldy belly up in her bed and something dark red, bloody, squiggly and fleshy looking coming out of her body in-between her bottom front fins. My guess due to the decomp she most likely died the day I left. I would've postponed my trip but my parents needed help moving. Was there anything I could have done, looked out for, did wrong or could have done better here? She deserved to live longer and I am so sad.
I think for now it'll be a planted shrimp tank. Should I drain the tank, disinfect, disinfect the plants and re-cycle? Does the substrate need to be thrown out? Do I need to be worried if it was a disease or parasites? It was sudden and I don't want it to happen again. Thanks for your time.
Normally looks like this
Plants have changed but general tank reference
what she looked like before I left on Friday
I can't leave it on a sad image so cute water change image
She was in a Fluval spec V five gallon with a small heater, the temperature in the tank is 78. It was a planted cycle with gravel, a stone, a piece of driftwood from the local fish store, three anubias and moss. Driftwood boiled and soaked for days to waterlog. Added fish food in there and liquid fertilizer Seachem Flourish. I think cycling started sometime in December.
End of Jan parameters looked good and I got 3 blue dream shrimp from a LFS. 2 weeks later shrimp are doing well and showed no signs of stress and gave birth to a bunch of baby shrimp. I added a female koi pattern plakat betta Loki from a LFS. First night she killed a shrimp so the other two got moved to a shrimp only tank. No signs of stress, water changes once a week, gravel vacuum and glass scraping. Fed northfin Betta bits 5 pellets twice a day skipping Saturday. Zoo med dial a treat occasional snack maybe 2-3 pieces mysis is a fav, dislikes the dried bloodworms. She eats what she wants and leaves the rest, sometimes it's half her pellets sometimes it's just one. All uneaten food is immediately removed as well as any visible poo via pipette. Added catappa leaves into a silicone suction holder near the top of the tank so Loki had a place to rest, this is near the anubias so this is a favorite place to hang out and peek from in-between the leaves.
Struggled with algae, first tried physical removal with a toothbrush, then removed driftwood and scrubbed with peroxide, thoroughly rinsed, sun dried, soaked in dechlorinated water and returned to the tank. The driftwood initially smelled like rotten eggs but less after subsequent cleaning, not sure if this contributed to the algae. Plants had algae scrubbed off the leaves on weekly water change for months. Perimeters stayed stable during this time: 0 ammonia, 0 nitrites and fluctuating 5-10 nitrates tested weekly initially with the API kit. Close to 50% 2 gallons roughly changed every week at this point. Got a timer and normalized photo period to 8 hours. Removed moss due to the algae added staurogyne repens and tablet fertilizer. Tried Brazilian pennywort but it didn't thrive and was ultimately removed. Added a nano anubias and it was too difficult to clean the algae off and ended up in the shrimp tank, they do a way better job of cleaning. All new plants are cleaned in a solution of peroxide when I unpack and quarantined in dechlorinated water in a vase for weeks before it went into the tank. Algae situation was getting worse and started using seachem excel in May 2.5ml on water change days, 0.5 in the morning daily, later increased to 1ml daily. Added a piece of cardboard to limit the light to help with the algae and provide her with privacy and shade. This improved the algae situation and water changes were changed to once every two weeks so there's less disturbance. Excel is reduced to every other day.
About two months ago she started flaring at her food, spitting it out, watching it sink and then ignoring it. Bought Fluvial bug bites and Omega betta buffet pellets rotating every other day and she was a fan. The past month she had been going to bed early, sleeping in the leaf near the surface and had been skipping evening feedings twice a week. I don't wake her to feed. Occasionally she'll wake up and do the food dance: peeks out of the leaves to see who it is and swims up to the front of the tank and swim in 3 tight vertical circles against the glass and waits by the surface for me to turn off the filter and drop food in. After feeding if I'm not prompt to turn the filter back on she hangs out by the nozzle looking at it and looking at me, even if I'm still picking up food/poop. After that she goes about her business guarding the tank and looking at plants.
Overall she was really healthy, solid vibrant colors, the iridescent blue spread over her fins as she got older. One time something happened to her tail fin like a scratch, it looked white but healed in days on its own and returned to iridescent coloration quickly. She's super curious and swims up to the vacuum to watch the gravel tumble, it made cleaning slow but cute. Always swims directly under the plant I'm trying to vacuum so I just have to wait. Came close to inspect my hands when I'm cleaning the glass. Inspected new plants, while planting the staurogyne repens she wanted to inspect every stem I planted by swimming under them. She followed my finger outside the tank and if she missed food I could point at it and she'd swim over and eat it. I did not expect this kind of personality from a fish.
I've left her alone over the weekend in the past on 3 separate occasions with no food and no problems. Thursday morning was fine she was active, coloration looked good and nothing out of the ordinary, excited for food and ate most of her pellets. Thursday night she went to bed early so she skipped that meal. Friday morning she didn't come out when I approached and looked a little swollen, uncomfortable and kept looking away. She stayed close to her bed not swimming around but did move around changing positions. Her coloration was less solid; the black scales looked a little lighter. She had a strange bag shaped poo hanging off of her a couple days ago and I hadn't picked up any poo recently. I did a little research and the best match was potentially constipation. Most sites say to skip meals for 3 days and feed a peeled cooked pea. Checked water just in case, nitrite 0, ammonia 0, nitrates looked a little high at around 10-15 and did a quick 25% water change/vacuum before I left. She struggled a little when I did this. She swam around a little but floated immediately and returned to her bed after the water level came up. Fins weren't clamped, they were open and relaxed.
I came home Sunday afternoon. She was moldy belly up in her bed and something dark red, bloody, squiggly and fleshy looking coming out of her body in-between her bottom front fins. My guess due to the decomp she most likely died the day I left. I would've postponed my trip but my parents needed help moving. Was there anything I could have done, looked out for, did wrong or could have done better here? She deserved to live longer and I am so sad.
I think for now it'll be a planted shrimp tank. Should I drain the tank, disinfect, disinfect the plants and re-cycle? Does the substrate need to be thrown out? Do I need to be worried if it was a disease or parasites? It was sudden and I don't want it to happen again. Thanks for your time.
Normally looks like this
Plants have changed but general tank reference
what she looked like before I left on Friday
I can't leave it on a sad image so cute water change image
