Lost my betta :(

I am not having great luck getting back into this hobby!

Woke up today to find my male betta dead and stuck to the intake on the HOB filter. The kids found him actually. He was completely intact, just pale from being deceased. His tank mates are 4 small zebra danios, 3 ghost shrimp and a mystery snail. Prior to this he had 5 blood-fin tetras as mates, but they were a better fit for my 29gal. I did notice yesterday the he didn't want to eat and was just hanging around very still, at the top of the heater. Normally he had a ton of personality and follows you around. I do two ~50% WC's on this tank a week and did one along with a water test yesterday when I noticed him so listless.

Water params:
0ppm ammonia
0ppm nitrites
20ppm nitrates. (was ~30ppm yesterday)
temp 78-80F

The only anomaly with this 10gal is with the nitrates. It's got a lot of low-light plants in it, yet I struggle to keep nitrates below ~30ppm. I don't feed heavily either?

I dunno if it's me, Petsmart (where I bought this betta), or just luck of the draw. :headshake2:

Thanks.

That's the other detail I didn't think about. I've only owned him since ~02/15/13. He was a Petsmart purchase. Not thinking that I owned him for less than a month, I porcelain expressed him instead of exercising the return policy.

Thanks all!!

Yes, I have tested my tap water, and it tests out at a 0,0,0.

Like I say, all at once I noticed him just kind of listless, hanging out on top of the heater. He did swim around during/after the water change, but didn't eat. I left for work and he was gone in the AM.

Now I'm wondering, given he was a crowntail (big flowing fins), maybe in a weakened state, he got stuck to the HOB filter suction? He did used to swim around and behind the filter pickup with no problems. He was a strong swimmer and seemed to enjoy currents even. One of those things I'll never know I guess.

Maybe I'll avoid a crown tail next time just for good measure.

Oh, FWIW, Petsmart has a 14day return policy so he couldn't have been returned anyway.. IIRC, he was $6.79.

Yep, I'll probably go with a betta from my LFS. It's not the tidiest LFS in the world, but they've been OK to me recently and they keep a few male bettas in tanks with compatible fish. They don't do cups.