Betta Fish: I’ve worked at Petsmart for 9 months and I’m pretty sure this female koi betta has been here longer than me. I think the red on her cheek is from ammonia. This is day 1 of her new life in the unoccupied potted plant tank!

I was very surprised today when the manager on duty said i could move the female koi betta, the last betta to be in a cup with an old style lid (which was changed 6-9 months ago I’m pretty sure). We had a few tanks occupied only by potted plants and ramshorn pest snails. After a lengthy, careful acclimation she was finally introduced into one of the tanks. This picture was taken seconds after. I will be checking on her again tomorrow and monitoring her recovery.

Despite the best efforts of store staff, it is impossible to avoid ammonia spikes with the current betta cup system. We do 100% cup water changes almost daily but there was still enough ammonia present in the cup to result in physical symptoms on this lady. We do our best to make the cups as comfortable as possible by adding java moss and water changing as often as we can, filling the cups with as much clean water as possible.

Since this fish was in that system for so long she does not look the healthiest. I am hoping that, if she gets through the first week of acclimating to her new environment, she will begin looking much healthier. And I will post that journey here!