Hello everyone! Yesterday I posted about a Betta my step sister had given me as a poorly-planned Christmas present and I am happy to announce that the assembly of his new home is underway!
Unfortunately my nearest dedicated aquarist shop is closed until approx. Jan 10 as the store front is under repair due to damage caused by a recent robbery attempt according to the owner’s Facebook page but in the meantime I have managed to acquire some Amazon swords and Anubias from my local Petsmart so the quality isn’t the best even after careful trimming and will probably die short term but it’s better than absolutely nothing in my opinion when the goal is to get this poor fellow out of the little cup he came in as soon as humanely possible so he can stretch his fins with the best start possible under current circumstances.
Unfortunately the heater I have been given seems to run a little warm and seems non-adjustable so I have to order a different one that can be set to certain temps later this evening which will delay the introduction to the tank.
The fish’s morale seems high as while I was assembling the substrate and adjusting plants he -and my conure- seemed genuinely interested as he almost followed my hand movements as I did so and would watch as I left the room and returned to pour water into his tank (yes, I had treated with a water conditioner my dad got for me on his way home from work. I am currently waiting for it to cycle some as I type this). This follows similar behavior I observed with him the previous day when I had him sit on my desk by my computer (away from the electronics) where he would actively look at the screen and react as I played Slime Rancher as everything was closed on Christmas Day. So I can presume that he is relatively fresh and may not have been in a cup long as he is hardly ever lethargic and still has a reasonable appetite. But to help him eat I have gotten some freeze-dried bloodworms for protein and may move onto frozen bloodworms when bag gets low. So he will remain on an experimental 50/50 diet of bloodworms and betta fish pellet with 1 feeding mid day to limit ammonia production while tank is cycling and growing beneficial bacteria.
Unfortunately no stores near me had FritzZyme, Prime, or Ammo-lock so I will have to acquire those from online sources as well as a proper fish net, Siphon, and a few other objects to help with the manual cycle process for the upcoming month and a half ahead. They should arrive within the next two days. I am prioritizing the essentials but I do have plans to get better hide-holes, plants, as well as driftwood/leaves to get some tannins going once I am certain he looks like he is making it but I will have to hold off on the time being to get this guy settled in/healthier and my bank account to recover some more before I dump $200+ on stuff that might be useless should he unfortunately pass during this experimental/introduction period.
Comments, recommendations, and tank ideas are welcome.
https://i.redd.it/fh8lggz7yl9g1.jpeg
Posted by GreenADHDBird
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(Note): had other pictures including the products I had purchased spread out on a table as well as one with both my betta and my conure looking at the tank together but the app did not want to cooperate and let me post those from my library.