Hi Everyone

[sam*sam23]

Hi I would really appreciate some advise from you experienced fish keepers out there.

Last month I got a tropical starter kit, aqua 30 light, it is 25 L and came with two sacets of the chemicals i needed to add, a filter and a heater. I also got some gravel, plastic plants and cave, I did this in hopes of keeping a siamese fighting fish, so on the 8th this month I took my water sample in to the pet shop ( in cambridge, uk) and left with a beautiful blue male. At first he was fine, he was even building bubble nests and everything, I thought I knew what I was doing( rather nievely) cause I've been doing loads of what I thought was research online.

So he was fine, eating dried bloodworms and flakes, swimming around. Yesterday he started getting lathargic then befrore I knew it he was changing colour getting pale and loosing fins ( fin rot?), I did a water change 50% ( i read that was the thing to do) he died today . This is my fist aqarium, I feel awful that I have not been able to keep him alive. I spoke to the pet shop and their advise was to clean everything and start again but this time to start with some neon tetra ( which will be free to the price of the fighter), then add a couple of corey dorey and some guppys next, then last a siamese fighter, and they also said I could have a female or two in there. This goes against most of what I have read online, I thought fighters were better kept alone, I suppose I have been getting bad info, can anyone advise me here? what did I do wrong? what are the best fish to add with a fighter? can females really be kept with males? also dose anyone have a pic of a corey dorey please, thanks for taking the time to read.
cheers, sam

 

[Colin_T]

Hi Sam and welcome to the forum

corey dorey is actually Corydoras catfish. There are heaps of different types but if you Google Corydoras you will get to see them.
Male and female fighters can be kept together sometimes but it depends on the male. Some males are killers and will physically hunt down and terminate females and other male fighters in the same tank. And then other males will live happily with females. You are better off just keeping a male or a female and not both. Males have longer fins and are more colourful so people usually keep them.
Many fish can be kept with male Bettas (fighters) but they must be peaceful and not a fin nipper. Avoid fish like serpae, red eye, Columbian tetras, tiger barbs, and blue or gold gouramis. These fish will cause problems to the male fighter.

Don't wash the tank or filter out at this stage. The shop should have given you some results for the water test and these would help us give further advice. If they didn't give you the results then perhaps take a glass full of tank water to another shop and have them test it for Ammonia, Nitrite & PH. Then bring the results back here.
Without the results it is hard to give more advice other than you probably have an ammonia and nitrite reading in the tank. Ammonia is caused by anything that breaks down in the water, (fish food and waste). Ammonia is very toxic to fish and is probably what killed the male fighter you had. During the first month of a tank's life you should keep the feeding down to once every couple of days and do a partial (30-50%) water change every few days as well. Any new water going into the tank should be free of chlorine and have a similar temperature and PH to the tank water.
If you have an ammonia reading in the tank and you add new fish they will probably die. Without testing for ammonia I would advise against adding any new fish at this stage. If you can't get the water tested and really want some fish, then drain the tank and refill it with some tap water that has been dechlorinated and allowed to stand for a few hours. Then after a day go and get a couple of fish.
The other option is to allow the filters to develop without fish in the tank. This is known as “Fishless Cycling”. You add liquid ammonia to the tank on a daily basis and over time the filters develop the good bacteria you need to keep the fish alive.

 

[sam*sam23]

Thanks for the advise, Colin_T sounds like a good idea to get the water tested again and get given the results, if I can, or if not i will drain and start again.I am very supprised about the water changes, the pet shop people said not to change the water at all for three weeks to let the water settle, I was feeding him every day. This way of fishless cyling sounds like it might work better than what I did, I just put one sacet of 'stress coat' water conditioner in the water turned the filter and heater on, with the false plants ect in and left it for 8 days, added 'stress zyme' then added the fish.
cheers for telling me a bit more about Corydoras catfish, I was getting no where searching for 'corey dory' I just kept getting loads of articles about blokes called corey, lol. This has been very helpful, I will go and research futher now I have a better idea of the fish to avoid with a fighter, thankyou for your help.