Betta Fish: Class betta rehab over winter break

This is Poseidon. He’s a class pet at the school where I work as a supplementary teacher and I substituted for his class a few months ago, where he was in a miserable 1 gal hexagonal tank with a REALLY strong filter, neon pebbles, no heater, and a castle that took up 60% of the aquarium space. Plus, his food was terrible and had a lot of wheat, and he had really bad water quality.

I felt terrible for him but since the teacher was gone I couldn’t really say anything.

Fast forward a few months later, it’s the Friday before winter break and as we’re leaving, the teacher was asking around if anyone could petsit him over break. I jumped at the chance and asked if I could upgrade his tank, which she said was okay. Honestly, I don’t think she cared much about him, she just handed me the food and said it was okay if he died, which made me feel even worse for him.

After a few days in a temporary tank, I set up an empty 5 gallon I had at home that I was planning to use for my first tank, but I decided to donate to her class and get a 10 gallon instead. The difference between him when I first got him and when I left was INSANE, he really perked up, and thankfully my friend who knows about keeping bettas pointed out that he had some fin rot, so I was able to treat him too.

I was super sad to see him go, but ow he’s back in his class and doing better than ever 😀 (and he has a lil snail friend too!)