Aquarists should have our own hot line that's just 24/7: "You do not need another tank!"
Anyway, my friend moved in a few months ago, and the only downside is that they infected us and now we're all tank people. Literally 0 – 5 tanks in 3 months. I thought I would only do shrimp, and I snagged an additional tank on sale for a future shrimp-related project. Minding my business and picking up some other pet supplies this weekend, I passed by the betta wall at the LFS and said hi as usual, when I locked eyes with HIM.
I have looked at thousands of betta fish over the course of my life. But him? I couldn't get his face out of my head. I thought about him when I went to bed, and I thought about him when I woke up. After spending nearly all weekend deliberating and bemoaning, my roommate pointed out that I did just buy another tank…
I raced through the store to the betta wall and there he was, staring at me, like he had been waiting. It was a long night getting everything set up while he sat in his cup on top of my spouse's tank to soak in some light and heat. My roommate donated half of the water from their cycled betta tank (I would NOT have risked if I didn't have established water to start with), and with a used filter and a final parameter and temp check, he was released. Of course, he knew it was his domain right away, even going so far as to stare down the donated ramshorn snails who had been in there a whole 30 minutes before him.
Current top picks for names are Peanut Butter, Bad Horse, and Tax Evasion. I love him.
If you've read this far, thank you. Feel free to leave any suggestions on some good activities or toys/enrichment. I'm working on a few live copepod/daphnia/scud cultures for our tanks too, so come this weekend he (and all our finned friends) will have tons of fresh live food.
https://www.reddit.com/gallery/1oijzp2
Posted by scrapyardshrimp
3 Comments
🎵🎶how did it end up like this… Your koi is beautiful!
They really are like potato chips. I’m in the process of cleaning and setting up a second tank to empty-cycle for another friend in the future.
😍
I’m for Tax Evasion, Peanut Butter feels more like a Mustard-Betta name and i kinda don’t like the vibes of Bad Horse.
He’s gorgeous, btw and i love that you’re doing live food.
The best enrichment you can give them is complex terrain, they constantly check their territory for uninvited guests (or possibly lady bettas), checking behind and around everything, also live foods that are giving him a proper hunting target.
I also do pipette training, if you feed with a pipette for a while, they will associate it with food and chase it like it owes them money, having them chase the pipette is a more stress-free way to exercise them than for example having them flare at mirrors (one doesn’t exclude the other, it’s however important to check if he’s stressing out too much with mirror-training and to not overdo it).