Lost My Betta, What Next?

mwood2 · Jun 24, 2009

So I woke up this afternoon (slept in late) and found my betta dead in his tank. The tank is fully set up with mature media and when I check the tank a day or 2 ago was fine. When I found him this morning he had white puffy eyes and has white coming out of his stomach.I bought him a week ago at petsmart and didnt see anything wrong with him. He way eating and ate the blood worms I fed last night and flakes prior to that. The only issues I saw was that he hung out by the filter alot and wasent as active. I just check the ammonia at this point of the post and saw it was 0 ammonia and 0 nitrite. Temp was also around 82. The filter was a Fluval U1 but current was set to lowest and has filter floss inside of the output to prevent a fast flow, also had it blowing up.

My issue is wither or not to place something in there to perserve the cycle. I found him dead around 2PM this afternoon and its currently 10:50PM as of right now. I could currently place a Honey Gourami, ADF or a small Molly right now. The Molly is a few months old and is currently 1.5-2in long only. Pics of my tank is below:

Any suggestions for other possibilities? Also debating removing the 5 gallon, placing the 10 gallon on that stand and add another 20-30 gallon next to my current one.

LauraFrog · Jun 24, 2009

Personally I'd put some fish food or meat in there (to produce ammonia and keep the cycle going; preferably use bottled ammonia if you have it) while I worked out what killed the betta. It could be just about anything with a pet store rescue. It could also be highly contagious. Last year I brought home a rescue and had it spread a foul strain of columnaris around most of my tanks. One fish ($10) killed off seven others, around $150 worth of breeding stock.

mwood2 · Jun 24, 2009

Thanks, I will be sure to add some ammonia to the tank here soon (I have a jug of pure ammonia). I am debating a larger tank soon so I will start a new cycle and keep it at 5ppm so I can start it off the bat. I also may just take down the tank and add the Fluval to my 10 or 30 gallon and run to keep the bacteria on there too.

Bobtastic · Jun 24, 2009

I've heard that PetSmart is like Pets at Home in the UK and I've heard some pretty bad stories about both... If you cycled the tank in either of the normal fashions and the fish was pretty knew I reckon its safe to assume that it was something that was wrong with it from the store...