Hello all! Here is my fish Swimothy. I got him this week and love him dearly. He is my first fish and I have done quite a bit of research. He is a male veil tail. He likes hanging out in his log, in plants, and behind his driftwood. I will admit that everything is from petsmart as I am a broke college student. Any advice on fish care is greatly appreciated!
I have been feeding him freeze dried brine shrimp as well as omega one buffet flakes. My biggest issue with those is that I am unsure how much to feed. The internet has said “as much as he eats in 1-3 minutes” which is not very helpful. He only likes to eat from a pipette and wants me to slowly put it out for him. One food floats to the top he does not want it. He dislikes the flakes, but likes the shrimp. So i have been trying to mix them when feeding. He also gets distracted/scared from the pipette sometimes and runs. I plan to add bug bite pellets to his diet eventually. I have to wait though, because retailers near me don’t carry it in store. I guess I would like a visual representation of how to feed flakes and freeze dried brine shrimp.
I plan to add ghost shrimp to his enclosure soon! He had a 10 gallon tank. I plan on getting either 3 or 4 of them to help with tank clean up. Currently, I plan on doing 15% water changes once a week. When you guys do water changes, do you add a bit of bacteria or no? I have been using stability in my tank. Also, how often do you guys test your water? I did not buy a test kit yet but a store near me tests water.
I would like advice also on how to spot diseases! I have looked up on TikTok how to spot common ones, but any advice, even if commonly known is helpful!
Also, if anyone has any recommendations of easy to care for plants that grow like crazy, please let me know!! as well as any retailers/online sellers you recommend for that.
Thank you so much! Here is a couple picture of my tank so far and my sweet boy.
https://www.reddit.com/gallery/1qtexj6
Posted by coffeecatscandles
2 Comments
congrats on your new buddy!! although i’m new to this community, i have done a lot of research on betta care and am still learning so please forgive me if i say anything wrong!
for starting my new tank, i use microbe-lift’s nite out starter bacteria and followed the instructions on the back. there are 2 different times to use it, one where you start up the tank and the other for maintenance. if you use another brand, please check and see if there are any instructions on the back for maintenance/water changes!
since i just started a new tank, i plan on doing water testing weekly before changing my water until my tank stabilizes!
there’s a youtuber i watch, her channel is called “girl talks fish” i believe, and she has a detailed video about spotting diseases in bettas! (and other very informative videos on bettas)
Cute fish! I’m so glad you did your research because most fish owners don’t! A little tip for you fish tank is first are the plants you have in the tank plastic? If they are I would remove them because it can rip their fins, I would do silk or live ( live plants have so many benefits) but silicone can leak chemicals into the water and if it’s painted the paint can fall off and that’s obviously not good for the water- plastic can do the same with the paint (if it’s painted) and the chemicals. Also I would add more plants (live or silk) because bettas LOVE to hide!! Also one last thing is I would get a betta leaf or a betta log because bettas love to hang out near the surface! (Oh yeah and make sure the water flow isn’t to fast/hard but in the pictures it doesn’t look like it is!!!