My four year old begged us for a betta fish, and of course I said “yes”. Little did I know it would turn into a small obsession of mine. I had no idea how much joy I would get from just watching these little fish exist!
We have a betta male, three platties and a snail in our 9.5 gallon tank. I do a half water exchange about once a week, sometimes I go 10 days or so. We feed the fish once a day, mostly we feed the flakes but we have the brine shrimp as a treat once in a while.
I treat the water with the conditioner and with the quick start additive, we have been struggling to keep the nitrites in check.
We have had this tank set up for about a month now, and we have lost two platties 😭. I’ve replaced them because my children picked them out and I wanted to avoid the meltdowns. But I won’t replace any more little guys until I figure out why they are dying! Any and all help is very appreciated!
Posted by Wife1-Mom4
1 Comment
Somewhat a novice myself but I’ve had tanks for several years. It looks like you have really hard basic water, it might benefit you to bring the pH down with some sort of buffer closer to neutral and possibly go to jug water instead if tap if it’s the cause of the hardness. Can test it separately. Those nitrate levels are fairly good, some are typically always present. You wanna worry more about nitrites and ammonia and keep your nitrates under 40ppm but ideally under 20ppm. Mine are always much higher but i keep the tank heavily planted to offset and help draw them out along with weekly water changes. But I’m thinking the really basic pH and hardness might be the issue here