need help with my betta

Well, we need a bit of info, like water parameters (pH, ammoinia count, temperature) before we can even begin to hazard a guess

pH is essentially a measure of how "acidic" or "basic" your water is. pH readings range from 0 to 14, 0 being the most acidic, 7 being neutral (fresh water generally has a pH of around 7 if there aren't dissolved minerals), and 14 being the most basic.

The scale is based on powers of 10, so moving from 6 to 5 on the scale means that a solution with a pH of 5 is 10 times as acidic as a solution with a pH of 6.

Here are some links:

http://www.cbv.ns.ca/gbh/ph_scale/what_is_ph.htm

http://antoine.frostburg.edu/chem/senese/101/acidbase/faq/what-is-pH.shtml

It may be a little cold for him..... but i keep my betta in an room temp (aka 72-73F) 2.5 gallon and he's always moving around.

if he's feeling sick he's going to be sluggish.... like laying on the bottom and/or stuck to the filter intake.

what are you feeding him?

has he lost any color?

any visible marks on his body that weren't there before?

did you do anything different to the tank reccently, like a drastic water change/tank cleaning?


and ps tando murphy- betta's dont need to go to the surface to breathe air.... they usually only do when there isnt enough oxygen in the water or they are building bubble nests.... they do have gills too.

how long have you had your fish. I am guessing if they mean the world you have had them a while?

Your fish shop can also test water for you if you ask. They also have the test kit to check the water

I first got my betta in a 1 gallon tank with the room temp being close to 80 degrees. But my a$$hat roommate likes to open the window at night (when its 15 degrees out...), luckily he didn't kill my betta. After a month I thought a gallon tank was too small and bought a 10 gallon tank for the betta with heater. The temp is always around 78 degrees and the betta seems to be very happy in it. Then I got him tankmates and he's doing just fine.

My betta used to make bubbles nest in the gallon tank. Now that he's in the 10 gallon tank, he doesn't make bubbles, but does the same swim as if he was making it. I assume he's pretty happy.

You'd be hard pressed to heat a 2.5g tank without boiling your betta. It's been done, but I don't recommend it. Heaters aren't known for reliability. Better to heat the room than the tank.

How long have you had this fish?

What do you feed him and how often?

What is his appearance? Fins torn or faded? Does he appear bloated? Anything out of the ordinary?

Easy Tando, not everyone comes in knowing water chemistry and if you're dilligent in your care and water changes, it's entirely possible to go years successfully keeping fish without knowing of the intricacies of pH in an aquarium. Learning through experience, while occasionally messier, is far more effective than simple book learnins'.

However, shedge, if you are serious about fishkeeping, it's time to invest in a test kit. You can get the Hagen/Nutrafin mini master test kit for about $30. It contains all the tests you need for fishkeeping and a bit of info on the significance of each. Take it with a grain of salt though, each tank is different and the info they provide is very basic.

That said, Wippit and Celura have covered two important diagnostics you should check and include in your posts for help. Water parameters, age, appearance, habit, etc. are all important diagnostics.

Celura's right about the heater, I think if you were serious about heating it, you'd need some form of external circulation to move water through the two tanks and a third reservoir for temperature control. Tricky, doable, but probably more work than you're looking for.

Besides, if your room temp is around 79, your tanks will adjust pretty quickly, they're small.

Originally posted by Tando Murphy
I did not realize that bettas were able to breathe through gills. I've kept bettas in community tanks for over 20 years, and I know the dissolved oxygen in the water is high enough to support many fish, and yet, my bettas ALWAYS went to the top to gulp a breath of air. While they MAY be able to breathe through their gills, my experience is that they normally breathe air from the surface. Perhaps they are only supplementing the oxygen they get from the water, but there you have it.

Click to expand...

From my observation, my betta still breathes from surface. My betta stays underwater a lot longer (and I mean long) in my 10 gallon tank with air pump and filter than he did in the gallon bowl with nothing in it.