Fighting Bettas

[pacaho]

I have a beautiful male called Hiro, we decided to get a couple of females to keep him company,[ the pet shop didnt tell us not to mix them, he was the first fish we have ever bought] After a couple of days of him chasing them we rang the pet shop to ask if this was normal, they said yes give them a couple of weeks to settle in. Went in to check on him last night and noticed his beautiful fins are all raggy,at that moment we witnessed one of the females come up behind him and clamp onto his fins, he was going mad trying to shake her off,she has made a real mess off him . At the mo until i can get her back to the pet shop she is in a goldfish bowl but it has no heater.Hiro seems ok and is swimming around ok chasing the remaining female and is eating ok.Will his fins repair themselfs and will he be ok. As i said earlier we have never owned fish before so im pretty clueless, but real worried. Any help would be gratefully recieved. thank you

 

[JasonU]

His fins / tail should grow back, just make sure his water is good etc. My betta lost alot of his tail, most of it has grown back but not all. He is happy though and it has not affected his mobility.

You could use melafix, see if that helps prevent any further damage.

Definately not a good idea to have the females in with the male. Sadly you often get bad advice from pet / fish shops.

 

[pacaho]

Thanks for the quick reply,im going to take the other female out as soon as my hubby gets home and send him back to the pet shop with them,been worrying all morning about the male, i did a 25% water change this morn and added a capfull of nutrafin aqua plus.How often do you think i need to do a water change, every couple of days or so and should i keep adding the aqua plus. The poor thing looks a sorry sight now,im real worried i might lose him, he was bought for my little girl but i have become very attatched to him.

 

[Netty]

Another lfs giving out such awful information . At least you know now.....but it's such a shame you had to find out the hard way. Quite often with more than one female they will gang up against the male. As long as you keep his water nice a clean his fins will grow back. At first they will be much paler than his normal colour. Sometimes they will stay like that but other times they eventually get their proper colour back again.

Try to keep him as stress free as possible. Reducing his lighting will help. The water changes depend very much on the size of the tank, whether it's filtered and whether it's been cycled before adding the fish.

Good luck with him and I'm sure he'll be as good as new in no time

 

[pacaho]

thanks for that,ive just got back from the pet shop,they were happy to take the females back but were suprised when i told them that one had attacked the male,they reckoned that that doesnt normally happen and that females arnt aggresive.Well that was funny because as the assistant was being a know all the two females were attacking each other in the container i had taken them back in.Got a refund on them which i didnt expect. Hopefully Hiro will recover now, he is in a smallish tank in my daughters bedroom,out of sunlight in a nice shaded spot. the tank is 17 ltres with a filter and temp is about 25, he has been in it about 7 weeks, do a 30% water change usually every 10 days. That was what the pet shop said to do but that info is probably wrong as well.

 

[Netty]

Glad to hear you got your money back.....that'll teach em lol

You could do with upping your temp abit more to about 27c. Lower temps can weaken their immune system and leave them prone to getting illness. I would say with your size tank to do about 25% per week for now

Then you need to get your camera and get a photo of him for us all to see!!!!

 

[x0x.love.you.x0x]

oh yes pics!

 

[Platygirl11]

Ugh, and I thought I got bad advice from pet stores! Keeping betas together?
(One person told me that platys were hardy little fish that didn't breed. )

 

[pacaho]

Thanks Netty, i put the temp up slowly so it wouldnt be a shock for him. Got home from a day out yesterday and he had made a huge bubble nest, think he's trying to tell me something,ha ha. He seems happy enough though, he was off his food last night but ate this morning and came to the edge of the tank as soon as he saw me.Will post later in the week to let you know how he is doing and also try to get a pic of him.

 

[Netty]

That's great news Sounds like he's a very happy boy now and look forward to an update and pics soon!!

 

[pacaho]

Just an update on Hiro, he is doing really well and his fins are looking lot better, he is a well happy fish and getting loads of care and attention from my 9 yr old daughter