Odd Duck

Try the BAND app and see if you have one or more for local groups. Or search for a local fish club. You can also sell as “local pick up only” on the Fish Swap Buy/Sell/Trade sub forum here. Or there’s always AquaBid. Their software / website is rather out of date and a bit of a pain to get set up to sell, but it can still connect you to many potential buyers.

Mystery snail eggs never separate like that. They will stay stuck together unless you crumble them and when crumbled they are not intact. Plus they always stay that pale pinkish tan color. I don’t really have any bright ideas on what they are, but would like to see more close up images. Maybe lift some out on some paper and take zoomed in closeups. I’m not even certain they are eggs based on these pics. I’m not saying they aren’t eggs, but I can’t be certain they are eggs. They definitely aren’t eggs from any of the listed inhabitants. Do you happen to have any emerse plants that were brought in from outdoors? Or houseplants that were brought in from outdoors? These have a strange fuzziness around the edges and that’s not something most eggs have. Eggs are generally fairly distinctly shaped and don’t have what looks like micro eggs around them. It almost looks like some powder is sitting on the surface encapsulated somehow. But they’re also strangely similar in size at the same time. Very odd. Can you lift some out on some paper and get closer pics?

Some bottled bacteria can have surprisingly active microflora that grow faster than the traditional bacteria but may not do a great job in the long run. Usually bottled bacteria have a wide mix and the hardier bacteria will eventually get going. In the mean time, you have to give the biofiltration to more fully develop and be patient. Keep testing, etc. Are you doing ammonia, blind feeding, or relying on the ammonia produced from your aquasoil type substrate?

Java fern varieties “Fishtail” and “Sunrise” can both develop orange tips to their fronds under certain conditions. You might want to look into those to reinforce your orange theme. They would still be a good contrast for your orange fish since most of the leaf is green. I am a little bit concerned about having that many rice fish in such a small tank. They might be a bit borderline on bioload for that many, especially early on while the biofiltration is still developing. You might need to add them a few at a time until you get to a good group. Do you have a tank that you would be using for quarantine? If your quarantine tank is bigger you could potentially get them all at the same time and then add them over a couple weeks instead of over months while each new, small group undergoes quarantine. If you decide to go with a different species, consider ember tetras. They’re a little bit smaller than the ricefish and are a nice bright to deep orange. Not as soft a color as the rice fish, but would work well in an orange themed tank.

That glass is gorgeous! I can’t wait to see it! The stand itself is going to be a work of art!

Yep. I’d LOVE to see one! The gene for patches of color on white is separate from the genes for color, so it could happen and would be amazing. I also lean towards that likely to be in that 1:100,000 range or less to get a true chimera with color patches divided side to side. Because of how embryos merge, it could have only a small amount of black or only a small amount of orange. Like only one leg could have an orange patch and the rest of the cat could be black patches on white or vice versa. We tend to think of chimeras being perfectly split down the middle, but they aren’t always. They can be uneven and sometimes extremely uneven. But split perfectly down the middle - that would be truly epic! And apologies to @Scapexghost for getting completely side-tracked into a calico cat genetics discussion instead of guppy genetics discussion. SQUIRREL! 🐿️ 🥜 🌰

Chimera can be orange patches on white one side, black patches on white on the other, so each could be fertile but by the definition of calico, still a calico and perfectly fertile but would not throw calicos of course.

I’m a bit more concerned about your space above the tanks. I have 8 to 9” above my tanks on each shelf and it’s awkward to do water changes, siphoning, and catching fish is a bugger, somewhat depending on species.

Triploidy calico males (the most common male calico (around 1:1000 or 1:3000 or 1:10,000 depending on the resource) are nearly always sterile, but male chimera calicos or even more rare, spontaneous mutation while developing males, can be fertile. These very rare conditions are likely no more than 1:10,00 or 1:100,000 depending on which resource you quote.

Sometimes they will send out a runner that’s just a runner, but that looks like a flower stem, for sure. The “plain” runners look like they have leaves the whole time. They’ll be spaced about the same as the “flower type” runner nodes will. This has those finer, almost frilly looking bits that turn into flowers first, then plants.

Crypts definitely send out runners but it seems to vary a bit between species. Pontederiifolia runners fairly prolifically but they runnered so vigorously in my 14 G they went directly under the slate holding my driftwood piece in that tank - runner was at least 8” long. Most of the wendtii varieties I’ve grown will runner but seem to like to get a little bigger and more crowded before they do compared to the pontederiifolia. My parva must be runnering because my stand keeps getting denser but they’re so small and they do it so slowly I only notice when I compare photos over time. Parva stand pics for entertainment. First pic from September 13, 2021, next from December 1, 2021, third from February 3, 2022, then January 4, 2023, fifth from November 8, 2023, then the last one from just now. I can’t find any pics from when my Crypt. ponte. kept shooting runners across the tank under the slate. I was very annoyed about it because I wanted a thicker stand in the back left corner of the tank and it kept shooting runners under the slate to the right front. I finally had to dig out that runner and redirect it to the back. Pulling it was not keeping it controlled.

I don’t have any dosage information for fish in my formulary but I suspect that may be because fluconazole is only slightly soluble in water. I’m not sure what else is in the packets because the packets are 1 gram each (1000 mg) and contain only 200 mg of fluconazole. So the other 800 mgs in each packet may be something that makes the fluconazole more soluble plus likely some kind of anti clumping / flow agent(s) to make the powder come out of the packet better. Fluconazole is a decent antifungal drug. I’m just not sure how effective it would be mixed into water. It should be stable enough if you can get it to mix, but is that going to actually get into the fish? I don’t know. If it will dissolve into the water it should treat topical fungal infections fairly well. I would black out the tank while using. The only study I found that looked into the stability of the drug was storing it in the dark but they found it to be stable during storage for whatever that’s worth for treatment. 🤷🏻‍♀️

There’s really not much more I can tell you beyond what we’ve already discussed - Daphnia is your best shot if it’s an intestinal issue, but if it’s internal organ damage - liver or kidney - there really isn’t much that can be done except superb water quality and hope he can heal with time. With the stomach getting bigger it could be an internal tumor and there’s nothing short of potential microsurgery to be done if that’s even possible in his case. There are maybe 2-3 veterinarians in the country capable and willing to risk that and cost would be several hundred dollars and possibly thousands if they required advanced imaging (CT scan or MRI) before surgery. It’s simply not realistic to do that type of surgery on a betta if he was even a candidate for surgery. You will have to keep trying with frozen or live Daphnia as your best option. With frozen you could try adding metronidazole since you might get incredibly lucky and treat a flagellated protozoan with that. But honestly, any treatment at this stage is a long shot for a cure. I wish there was something more definitive I could recommend.

I haven’t personally used the med trio but I definitely recommend repeated dosing of dewormers for puffers since they are more likely to end up with parasites. Here’s my typical regimen. I’ve used this for pea puffers but I’ve never owned bigger puffers. Pardon any font or spacing weirdness, it copies strangely from my “Notes” app. Deworming Siphon out debris from the bottom before and after dosing to remove any expelled worms, eggs, debris, etc. Levamisole is inactivated by organic debris and by light, so dose after lights out and black out the tank for 24 hours, remove organics via water changes and cleaning the bottom of debris as much as possible. It’s likely that levamisole does what it can do within the first hour, but best to follow directions precisely. If you have a bare bottom hospital tank available, it might be best and easiest to transfer the fish to that tank for the duration of treatment - up to 5 weeks total treatment time if doing 3 doses of praziquantal. Levamisole treatment should be weekly for 4 treatments. Praziquantal treatment should be every other week (at least) for 2-3 treatments and it is left in for a week at a time. It can be dosed the day after levamisole treatment. Remove any carbon or Purigen from filters before dosing. Have enough dechlorinated water to do a 50% water change immediately if any adverse symptoms are seen in the fish. A typical treatment regimen: 1. 50% water change with careful siphoning of debris from the bottom of the tank. 2. Dose with levamisole and black out the tank for 24 hours. Then 50% water change siphoning the entire bottom of the tank. 3. Dose with praziquantal directly after the second 50% WC. 4. One week later, 50% water change siphoning the bottom thoroughly. Dose with levamisole following directions in step 1-2. 5. One week later (start of week 3 of treatment), repeat all steps 1-4 over another 2 weeks time. 6. Repeat all steps 1-5, then do last WC one week later after third dose of praziquantal. Not all snails will tolerate treatments, so best to remove any snails in the tank. Condensed, weekly schedule: Week 1: siphon debris and do 50% water change, levamisole x 24 hrs, siphon. Treat with praziquantal and leave in until next week. Week 2: siphon, levam x 24 hrs, siphon. Week 3: siphon, levam x 24 hrs, siphon, then prazi. Week 4: siphon, levam x 24 hrs, siphon. Week 5: siphon, levam x 24 hrs, siphon, then prazi. Week 6: siphon.

Is he still eating? How much? Did you have any luck getting him to eat Daphnia reliably?

My “purple dragon” guppies that were supposedly pure for many generations, fairly frequently have red pop out in the male’s tails but none in females tails. There are many, many instances of sex linked color differences across many families - fish, birds, reptiles, spiders, other insects, to name a few, and including mammals - like the example cited for how rare calico manifests in male cats (something like 1 in 10,000 is what I read / hear most often but I’ve never seen a legit source quoted to back that number) and nearly all male calicos are reported to be sterile. I don’t know enough about guppy genetics to give you the specific reason why the red only manifests in your males @Scapexghost, but I’m certain there’s differences in either gene presence or expression / suppression / activity that’s behind it.

For NANF you should watch for topics from @Fish Folk since he does a fair bit with them and has more than one species of NANF topics. You can also do a search on the forum for NANF if you haven’t already. You can search the forum in general and sub forums. There are several others doing NANF (too many to list) but checking out @Fish Folk’s topics will get you to them, too. Welcome to the forum!

Definitely very strange but appears very unlikely to be something the fish will recover from. Not sure what could cause that but an intestinal infection and sepsis (infection in the blood / entire animal) seems most likely. Probably with a gas producing species of bacteria to cause that bubble. I would recommend euthanasia then would do a post-mortem exam. I might try inserting an extremely fine gauge needle like using an insulin syringe and aspirating / draining that clear bubble to determine if it’s gas or liquid. Then open the fish and look inside. I don’t know what the nearest university would charge for a post-mortem exam but that’s your best chance at figuring out what’s causing the issue. Sorry I’m not more help. With only females affected I would first think a reproductive issue like egg-binding, but that shouldn’t cause a bubble like this. I have nothing brilliant for you.

That’s clearly a peppermint flatworm. Mostly harmless since it doesn’t have the triangular head of the predatory flatworm. Likely will get eaten sooner or later, but you might have to get some big sailfin mollies to go after that big one.

I’ve had some similar snails in my tanks that I was told before I saw them in person were Thiera winteri (Prambanan snails) but they are definitely not because they don’t get anywhere near big enough. They only seem to get to about 3-4 mm long but they don’t seem to bother anything and spend most of their time stirring my sand substrate for me so I don’t care if they’re there. I’ve not been able to identify them but they look a lot like your pics. If your’s only get about 1/8” to maybe 3/16”, they might be a match for mine. I can’t tell you what they are but I can tell you a lot of species they aren’t. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Definitely looking like popeye now and I’m a bit worried that his right eye is looking a little swollen. For sure, go for the salt and Maracyn-2. You should probably consider an Epsom salt soak, though. Same as for others we’ve talked about.

I’ve had the best luck buying locally so they were adapted to local water. I can’t ever seem to keep Daphnia going long term. I’ve managed several months at a time but the culture always crashes sooner or later. I think I might let them get too dense population because I want a “really good culture so I can feed more” but I end up not feeding quite enough or not having enough water volume to sustain the population I really want. I don’t know what, exactly, but I do know that if you can get him eating and keep him moving, he stands a better chance of recovery. Daphnia will often do that for bettas plus the benefit of preventing constipation because the shell has enough “roughage” effect to make sure things are moving through like they should. If you can sustain a culture, fantastic, but even if you can’t, you can feed a few Daphnia meals each week for a month and it might really help sort him out better along with your pellets, some frozen bloodworms, and whatever other worms or live foods you can find or grow, etc.

Up and swimming is great! Can you get live Daphnia now that he’s swimming? And I would start offering more variety of foods if possible. Too much of the same thing can potentially cause some malnutrition issues. That doesn’t mean that’s what happened with your guy, just a “food for thought” thing. Can you get any other pics so we can see what he looks like now? I know it’s very hard with moving fish, I’ve got a phone full of terrible fish pictures. Trying taking a video then saving a screen grab and sharing that or share the video as that can sometimes show us more about the body contours.

Random thought. Since the judges were so, . . . judgy about the amount of fish in the tank last time. Maybe you could try startling them a bit so some are hiding for your next contest photo. That might get enough out of sight that they won’t mind. 😆

Aw, she was so cute with, well, whatever that hairstyle was. I’m not really sure what you’d call that but I’m sure it was all the rage in the 60’s. At least by the 70’s girls were only ironing their hair straight on the ironing board. I helped my older sisters do their hair but I was too much of a tomboy to care at that point, so I had fairly short hair through most of the 70’s. 😆