1 dead betta, worried about other 3

[wantedcrazychic]

I was wondering if anyone could tell me what is going on with my bettas. I'm going nuts trying to keep these guys alive and I have no clue what happened! I bought two female bettas from Wal-Mart, Mystery and Intrigue, about a month and a half ago, my two males are from PetSmart (I know, bad place to buy either one, but I was very careful to make sure there wasn't anything obviously wrong with them and my Wally World and PetSmart are actually halfway decent for getting fish from), a week later. All of them are in seperate 3/4 gallon tanks with silk plants and the glass rocks that are smooth. I was feeding the Bio-Gold pellets to the two males and Intrigue, but Mystery refused to eat them. Figured she was just picky since everything I read said that they could be a little finicky, tried baby shrimp. She loved it and started eating again. About a week later, I decided to move her tank because I thought my light could possibly bother her eyes. She looked great. Really bright color, swimming in her plants happily, eating, nothing looked wrong. I wake up the next morning and she's dead. Her head and spine had turned black, her belly had turned white, and her tail was her normal color but a lot brighter. The next day I notice Intrigue and my blue male both are turning black around their heads and the male's side fins had turned a silvery white color. Put them both in smaller tanks and dosed them with Bettamax to be safe. The double tail male was fine. Two days later, Intrigue's looking back to normal so I put her back in her regular bowl. The male still had silvery fins, but seemed fine otherwise. Neither one had lost appetite or acted depressed. It's been almost two weeks now and nobody has been able to tell me what happened to my fish. Thriller's fins are still a silvery color, but I put him back in his tank. Then my double tail started having a problem with his swim bladder, but I managed to get him over it. I'm very careful with everything I do with them. I change the water every three days and disinfect the bowls and rocks with a 20/1 water and Clorox solution ever other week, leave the bowls and rocks in the sun for a day to deactivate any Clorox that might have gotten into any pores in the glass. I feed three pellets of the BioGold in the morning and a baby shrimp at night (Mystery got two baby shrimp a day), and I check them over very carefully at each feeding for any signs of disease. Can anybody tell me what happened to Mystery and why the other two got sick? What could've killed her that quickly? Thanks for any replies, I'm just waiting for one of them to get sick again :(.:(

[carpguy]

Don't disinfect the bowls and the rocks!

(No soap anywhere near the tanks either -- this includes windex-type glass cleaners)

Take a look at the stickies on cycling over in the newbie forum. Even in a filterless betta bowl, bacteria will colonize surfaces and help keep the ammonia and nitrite levels down between water changes and are critical to the health of your fish.

I'll guess that while Mystery was being finicky she wasn't producing a whole lot of nitrogenous wastes. When she started eating more heartily she also started producing more ammonia, which can kill fish rapidly (and is more toxic when temps rise -- like over the last few weeks).

Cut back on feeding until everyone seems more normal and keep up with the regular waterchanges (using dechlorinated water). Ammonia and nitrite test kits wouldn't be a bad idea.

Hope That Helps

[TKOS]

In tanks that size you should probably do a small water change everyday to help keep ammonia levels down. The tank may not seem to warrent it but an ammonia test kit wouldn't be a bad idea, at least until things get established.