New Little Rescue :)

[Meggie :)]

Hey all!

So we went to petco today to get some stuff for my other tank(s) and we found a little baby betta for sale (in a cup of course ) There were so many other bettas there, some floating and only moving when you moved the cup, some actually nice ones pretty active...but the thought of this baby growing up in a cup just...well to say the least my little sister decided to save her/him...He/she will be living in a two gallon bowl that we have available...we will do 100% water changes and our temperature in here is about a constant 68-70 degrees...should we put an air pump/air stone in there? A few more questions...


~ If I post a picture of her/him will you be able to give me your opinion on how old he/she is? (Personally I THINK he/she might be maybe 1 month, maybe a little more..)
~ When will we be able to tell if it is a male or female?
~ What should we feed him/her? We have some betta pellets and I have some frozen blood worms...I've heard that egg yolk is good too? What should our feeding schedule be for him/her?

I will post up a picture as soon as needed

Thanks!
Meg

 

[MegaZerino]

Hey all!

So we went to petco today to get some stuff for my other tank(s) and we found a little baby betta for sale (in a cup of course ) There were so many other bettas there, some floating and only moving when you moved the cup, some actually nice ones pretty active...but the thought of this baby growing up in a cup just...well to say the least my little sister decided to save her/him...He/she will be living in a two gallon bowl that we have available...we will do 100% water changes and our temperature in here is about a constant 68-70 degrees...should we put an air pump/air stone in there? A few more questions...


~ If I post a picture of her/him will you be able to give me your opinion on how old he/she is? (Personally I THINK he/she might be maybe 1 month, maybe a little more..)
~ When will we be able to tell if it is a male or female?
~ What should we feed him/her? We have some betta pellets and I have some frozen blood worms...I've heard that egg yolk is good too? What should our feeding schedule be for him/her?

I will post up a picture as soon as needed

Thanks!
Meg

an airstone would be good, but i doubt it would make much of a difference because theyre labyrinth fish and get most of their oxygen from the air (surface). you should feed it a varied diet but i have no idea about a feeding schedule, i feed mine twice a day, when i get up and before i go to bed, which is roughly 12 hours inbetween. im no expert but i hope it helped. and i would love to see a picture

 

[Meggie :)]

Thank you! And varied diet as in what? Like I said, I have frozen bloodworms, anything else I should buy? Should I feed him/her the betta pellets or stick to live/frozen food while he/she is still so young?

And this is him/her

We are acclimating him/her right now

~

 

[MegaZerino]

Thank you! And varied diet as in what? Like I said, I have frozen bloodworms, anything else I should buy? Should I feed him/her the betta pellets or stick to live/frozen food while he/she is still so young?

And this is him/her

We are acclimating him/her right now

~

its tiny!!! and yh, just give live bloodworms (frozen are just as good i think), pellet and anything else you can find, but make sure you dont overfeed it, and when feeding pellets, i always get the pinch and hold it in the water for around 10 or 15 seconds before releasing it for the fish to eat, because then it soaks up the water, which makes it expand outside the fish rather than inside the fish (which is how my last betta died). I would stick to the worms and pellets for now, maybe pellets in the morning and worms in the evening, but that may e awkward because shes so small and she might not be able to eat more than a couple of worms, i think you may just have to experiment. did that help at all??

 

[Fishy friend2]

It is TINY, I lve the was it looks. A good varied diet would be like a staple diet of finely crushed Betta flakes, because it probably cannot eat Betta pellets, and microwoms as a treat, and maybe some frozen daphnia or brine shrimp of you can get it small enough for it to eat them. Good luck! I hope everything goes well with your new fishie

 

[Meggie :)]

Could we do bloodworms too? We can cut them up small enough if necessary...she/he is in the 2 gallon bowl now and she looks so small in there! haha Tonight we just fed her/him some crushed up betta pellets within 5 minutes of putting her in and she ate Could a variety of bloodworms, crushed betta pellets, and microworms? How often should I feed her each of these and how much at a time?

Every time Sammie, my little sister goes up to the bowl (it's her betta ) he/she comes out from her little barrel and swims right up to her and follows her around..I think we are going to absolutely adore this fish..she/he already seems so sweet and social!

 

[Suwa]

I'm going to say she's perhaps 6 weeks old, give or take a week or a few days.

There is a very good chance that her growth may be stunted... The best way to get her to grow is to do some 'power' growing! Through my first and only shot at breeding bettas I found that when out of warm water and when eating less food, bettas stop growing and move through their life cycle more slowly. But, even after a long period of time, if you get them in warm water again and feed them like crazy, the life cycle will speed up again and they will grow to adult size. I dunno if this happened all the time, but it happened with me.. My 3 babies were always on the smallish side, and nearly a year later I put them back in warm water and fed them lots and they grew to be monsters.

So right now, you need to warm her up and feed her plenty of good foods, almost to the point of gut-stuffing her. 68-70 degrees is nowhere near warm enough, you need to find a heater. The Hydor Mini Heater would be a good choice, or the Hagen Elite Mini Heater (25 watts). You'll want to try to keep her water around 79-82 degrees Fahrenheit. Do water changes often, as baby bettas give off a growth stunting hormone, so you'll want to get rid of that. For now its best to not have a filter, just so you can do 100% water changes often so she can grow.

As for food, feed her often, at least twice a day, maybe up to 4 times a day. Hikari Micro Pellets or Fancy Guppy pellets have better nutrition protein-wise than their betta bites (weird!) and should be small enough to fit in her mouth. Freeze Dried or Frozen Bloodworms, Daphnia, Mysis, Tubifex or Brine Shrimp should be good. Microworms are good too, but you might find it easier to hatch your own Baby Brine Shrimp (they should sell eggs at Petco or Petsmart) than raise Microworms, and BBS are a superb food for baby bettas.

See how fat these babies are? Until she reaches adulthood, try to keep her fat like this (well, maybe a little less!).

When you think she has reached full betta size, start feeding her less and cool down her water to 75-78 degrees if possible.

So the three basics are LOTS of food, warm water, and lots of water changes. Hope this helps!

 

[Meggie :)]

Alright...picked up a heater and some brine shrimp..will feed him/her some frozen food tomorrow as she has already eaten tonight..now working on a name...any ideas?

 

[Fishy friend2]

Crystal would be a good name, with the fish's see through coloring

 

[MisssMarie]

I might be getting one today to give it a good home

 

[Meggie :)]

You should! I can't wait to see what this one turns out to be!

 

[MisssMarie]

Depends on if I can get a ride XD that'd be two new bettas in the next 2 days - bringing me to a total of 8...

 

[Meggie :)]

Well if you have seven might as well make it 8, right?

 

[MisssMarie]

Exactly! 8 seems like a fair number! I just called my local Petco and they don't have them, and so I'm probably gonna get just one female

 

[Meggie :)]

Well then you're just going to have to wait until they have some so you can rescue a baby...but then you'll have 9 which just cannot do, so you should get another one after that to make it ten...which is a great number!