My male halfmoon betta I bought 13 days ago from an LFS suddenly died and I don't know why. I checked my water parameters. He was in a cycled and planted 8 gallon bucket(as I didn't have a spare tank on me and was literally getting one today) I it was filtered and heated and I did water changes every two days. I've heard that halfmoons have some bad genetics but even before he died he was still eating but he was always a bit shy from the start hiding and never coming out and at the store he was floating at the bottom. But did I do something wrong??? The last picture was a water testing strip I did and it seems fine but I don't know maybe I'm reading wrong???? He didn't have dropsy, any diseases like ich or anything I could tell he wasn't like coming he was the picture of health but he still died. Please tell me what I can do to prevent this
https://www.reddit.com/gallery/1p55rzd
Posted by that_white_splat
3 Comments
Water changes every 2 days is way too much dude, specially with a filter in there. Testing strips are also super inaccurate, the actual testing kit with vials is the way to go when testing water
I’m not an expert by any means but water changes every 2 days seems like a lot for a cycled planted tank, how much water are you changing each time? I only do 10-20% water changes on my tank usually once a week since it is a new tank, but my water parameters have been stable so I will probably change the water less in the future as long as my parameters stay consistent
Unfortunately, it doesn’t sound like something you could have prevented. You had him for a very small portion of his life and it sounds like you took good care of him, so whatever caused him to pass probably happened before you ever laid eyes on him. Bad breeding practices, poor care, exposure to internal parasites, some physical trauma, lots of things you might not be able to see by looking at him. Short of getting a necropsy from a vet, you’ll likely never know what his cause of death was. I know it’s both sad and frustrating to not know and you want to be sure it doesn’t happen again. I’m genuinely sorry.
If you want something you can act on, I’d reccomend getting a liquid test kit so you can double check your parameters. Those strips don’t test for ammonia, which is very important in new tanks. But for the record, your water change schedule would have protected him from ammonia poisoning if that had been an issue. It might have been a little excessive in a fully cycled tank, but in an uncycled tank small frequent water changes are completely appropriate. The worst it would have done would be stress him out a little, but not enough to harm him unless there was something else really wrong.