Hannah Parker

So I've set up a lot of small, betta community tanks that are planted and only ever use a sponge filter. Luckily once you accumulate some things you can reuse things and cut down on cost! But usually, with driftwood, plants, the tank/stand and the fish, and equipment of course, it's around $200-$250 for me. I always try and buy my tanks and stands off of Facebook marketplace, and sometimes I get lucky and a light already comes with it. I either buy plants from my LFS or Aquarium Co-Op itself. Unfortunately I usually am working with a tight budget so I will buy things like heaters, air pumps and lights from Amazon, because with those things they have the best price. I will spend more $ on fish at my LFS than opting for cheaper ones at Petco, to get healthier fish.

Welcome! I love female bettas, they are so great. Very underrated

You absolutely were not kidding. While abiding by the rules of the forum, with what has happened this past Friday and how it changes the course of me and my fiancé's lives, his family has really imploded. Lots of hard things to suddenly discuss only 4 months away from our wedding. Brighter news, we decided on a lovely local venue that's very budget-friendly for just our ceremony and are doing it this fall. We are hoping to do a reception/send-off party in the spring/summer for our extended family and then off to our honeymoon after that. But yeah, sh*t is also hitting the fan. Hope everyone stays safe and healthy wherever they are in the US ❤️ I don't pray but I will be thinking of everyone.

We're always working towards being better too, I think that is the foundation of a healthy relationship 🙂❤️

I haven't used one before so I can't speak to that, but do you think it would dispense pellets better?? What kind of fish do you have, can they eat pellets?

I might be a hassle because of how fast they are, but I'm think you could bait them with some flake food on the surface, then take a big enough net to hopefully scoop them all up in one go. Then you could leave them in the net (still in the tank) contained while you clean. Whenever I isolate a fish this way, I use my glass lids to hold the net handle in place so the net doesn't fall into the tank. It doesn't look like you have a lid on this tank, but maybe you can think of something that could hold the handle in place instead if you wanted to try this. A book might work

You could do more endlers of course! You could easily have 10 endlers in a 10gallon. Or you could dive into some nano fish to be kept with them, like clown killifish. They would do well in a heavily planted tank. Alongside or instead of shrimp, you could also do pygmy corydoras. I loved my 10 gallon with nano fish!! At such a small size they don't get much cuter than that 😍

Do you keep tropical fish in there?? I keep my tropical tank heated at 80-82 degrees and on hot days it can get up to 84-85 in the tank and it's never seemed to do my fish any harm. Maybe you could bump up your tank temperatures slowly to accommodate your only source of water replacement.

I can't tell you how much we relate to this!! I'm sorry your initial planning was so stressful. It sounds like your elopement was amazing! 🤩 We are pretty close to doing that ourselves 😅 but we're giving it another go because we really do want our families there. Thank you for sharing 😊

That is too funny, that really does sum it up 😂 Thank you!😊

Thank you Sal. We love them but are definitely disappointed with some of them for sure. I'm sorry that happened at your weddings, that's such a shame. Thank you for your well wishes, I'm hoping it's gonna work out ❤️

I can't begin to express how amazed and grateful I am for the overwhelmingly kind, wisdom-filled responses I've gotten. Thank you all for your understanding and advice. I think this is what my mom has been trying to express to me, and this makes sense. She says we are too "in our heads" about it and the "performance" aspect, and I understand that. This is really good advice, because it's not like we hate them, we're just not close. But maybe that will change someday. I totally agree, I think we were wrong to assume they would definitely come because of their financial status. I wish they, and his brother, would have managed it better too, for his sake. I think at the end of the day we still want them and his grandparents there more than we wanted to get married specifically at Yellowstone. I love this idea, I feel like we really value our privacy but we also love our families and don't want to hurt any feelings by leaving people out. This makes a lot of sense, thank you. I think my worry that it would feel like a performance is on me and my insecurities, and that maybe we should just invite everyone and do and say exactly what we want and not worry about what they think if they attend. (Part of what factors into that is that we are atheists wanting a non-religious ceremony, and his entire family are Christians and pastors 😳). We have also been stressing about the cost of a reception and catering for a crowd, and I didn't even think about just going to a local restaurant! That's a great idea. We have also been thinking about just doing a big cookout at his parents' farm, which would definitely help with costs too. This is 100% true. This is where his feelings being hurt comes in, because he feels like he can't express how he truly feels to them. It's not fair to him at all. We have not, and I don't think that's a bad idea at all! My fiancé, however, doesn't yet see the value in "talk therapy," at least with a stranger. I can get him to talk through things with me just fine, but that has been worked on over many years. His tendency is to bottle things up. His family is very non-confrontational, which can leave many important things unsaid. My family is the complete opposite, with conversations regularly turning volatile in the name of honesty. So merging our communication styles and working with each other has taken a long time and been incredibly rewarding and important for our relationship. The only problem is it hasn't spread into his familial relationships yet, and I'm not sure if that's something he will ever be willing to do for himself. We will see and I will keep supporting him. I will definitely talk to him about this though, I don't think it's a bad idea at all! We have been navigating holidays pretty much since our first year together. I don't think I wrote it correctly in my initial post, but his family is also from Ohio (actually, our parents all went to school together!) and only his Aunt, Uncle and cousin live in Virginia. So 9 times out of ten we are able to see both our families on the holidays. I guess we really haven't, we kind of deal with issues as they come. We talk about expectations on behavior for certain recurring issues, but luckily those are few and far between so we actually don't have to worry about it much. I think since we are getting married now, and boundaries are sure to start to be pushed about certain topics like babies and such lol, that maybe we should have a discussion about how we should talk about things with our families. I feel like this would be a helpful discussion to have, since we are still transitioning from being "children" in the families and still finding our feet and confidence about these dynamics. I can't tell you how grateful I am for this golden advice. Thank you for taking the time to share it with me ❤️ I really thought a wedding would be simple, because we're already so in love!! I guess that's why we got so disheartened, we were a little too rosy-eyed with everything. Which I think is why we are craving a small ceremony or even elopement, so we can get the excitement and magic back without the responsibilities and expectations. I think what we will most likely end up doing is a small, private ceremony locally and maybe a bigger celebration of some sort for our whole families. We always wanted a small ceremony right from the get-go, so maybe we should make that a priority no matter what we do. I hope that we can develop our relationships as equals with our families even though we are young, and use this for an opportunity for healing as you say. Thank you again everybody for the advice and kind words, they really are some of the nicest gestures I've ever received.

Hi Everyone, So everyone here is always so nice and helpful, and most everyone on this forum has more experience than me in more areas than just fishkeeping. Also, I much prefer posting on this forum to posting on any other forms of social media, it's just so much nicer and I'm really not a fan of Facebook or Twitter or anything like them lol. Which makes me so glad for this Off Topic section! I was wondering if anyone might want to chime in with any advice or stories on planning a wedding! It is proving to be much more complicated and stressful than we were anticipating 😅 So if anyone is curious, my fiancé and I have been together for over 7 years now and he proposed to me this past April. We've been together since we were both 15, and bought our first house together and moved out together in April of 2021. We've both been waiting a long time to get married to each other, and are very comfortable with each other and laid back, so we were thinking that planning a wedding wouldn't be that hard at all, because we don't want anything fancy or complicated. Well turns out all the complications are coming from our family members and not ourselves at all 😅🤣 We are only close with very few of our family members, about 8-12 on each side; parents, siblings, aunts and uncles, cousins and grandparents pretty much. We are also very private and introverted, and didn't really feel like entertaining or "performing" for family members that we only see once a year. So we didn't want to invite anyone else except the ones we are close to! You would be amazed at the entitlement that some family members feel with our wedding just because of a title they hold. So to get around this entitlement, we were planning a destination wedding. We are both young, only 22 & 23, and don't have kids yet either, so we were wanting to go somewhere huge and just make it our honeymoon too. We decided on a destination wedding to Yellowstone National Park. It was actually my fiancé who came up with this idea, and we got so excited about it and really went with it. We decided we were absolutely making it happen, no matter what. I spent many hours over the next couple weeks researching how to get married in Yellowstone, places to get married, lodging options and even creating an itinerary so our invited family members wouldn't feel overwhelmed. We also paid for and reserved Mammoth Chapel, where we were going to have the ceremony. I made packets for every family member that included dates, times, lodging options and prices, flight options and prices, and a suggested itinerary. My family is far from perfect, but when we had a cookout and "pitched" Yellowstone to them, they were so excited and all for it. I can't say the same for my fiancé's family. His parents were both excited, but that's it. His grandparents were excited but worried they wouldn't be able to fly because of their health. His brother was extremely unenthusiastic and upset about having to save up for it (we told everyone we understand what a financial commitment it is and that nobody is required to attend). His grandparents scheduled a consultation with their doctor to see if they would be able to travel and if it would be safe for them. They were not cleared for travel and were very disappointed, as were we. Because we are from out of state, getting legally married in Montana was proving complicated, so we talked with his grandparents about legally getting married in Ohio and having them be our witnesses as a compromise as an idea, which they loved. A couple weeks later, we took a weekend trip to Virginia to visit the rest of my fiancé's family for his cousin's birthday and Confirmation ceremony into her Lutheran church. We are pretty close with them, and they come up and visit and stay in Ohio pretty frequently for living so far away. We "pitched" Yellowstone to them during our stay there, and it did not go well. They said "no" right away, because his cousin's high school exams are during that time. Well as far as I understood, having an exemption and taking high school exams early is quite common. They then went on to say how much of a commitment and hassle going to Yellowstone would be, and that it would have to be "the trip for the whole year". They are very well off, and keep in mind that they are going on a 4-week long vacation to Europe this summer with no issues. Needless to say, our feelings were very hurt by their reactions. My fiancé doesn't cry often, but he cried to me a lot that night and said he felt like nobody from his family really cared or was really excited besides his parents. It was heartbreaking. He said that combined with his brother's reaction and his grandparents not being able to attend (which is not their fault and we're not upset at them about) was the final straw and completely ruined Yellowstone for him. He said a lot of other things about how he was feeling too that I won't go into, but he was completely crushed. He said even as a honeymoon, Yellowstone just leaves a "bad taste" now. I know it's selfish to think about how it affects us, but with the current floods happening in Yellowstone I'm not even sure it would be a possibility for us anymore anyway. So now we are back to square one, with no idea what to do. At this point I think we are open to an elopement or a small local ceremony with like 25 people. It's honestly just so sad because of how excited we both were, and now we are both angry, sad and frustrated. I am really trying to recapture that initial excitement that we had, because we both love each other so much and our wedding should be nothing but happy. So long story short, I guess I'm reaching out for any ideas, advice or inspiration from anyone that has gotten married. I'm also kind of venting lol 🙃 I know it might be a little weird to post here, but I really do love the community here and I feel like someone out there might say something that might really help us. I would also just love to hear how other people navigate these things, and how other people got married and what they loved about their, etc. Thank you in advance and thank you for taking the time to read this 🥺❤️

You know your fish best, it is always so hard to tell when it is time to euthanize. Just observe her as much as possible and trust your instincts. If she isn't darting around and gasping today that is a really good sign. After reading on it, it seems API Ammo Lock does the same thing that you need as Prime, so definitely keep using that.

Hi Camryn, I'm so sorry to hear you're going through this. Firstly, I don't think your lack of acclimation was the cause for this. It might have contributed a bit, but it sounds like your tank cycle most likely crashed and from the red "wounds" and her behavior it sounds like she is suffering from ammonia poisoning. As you can see from your test strip, it looks like you have zero nitrites which isn't normal for a cycled tank, you should always have a few. So I believe your cycle completely crashed. The things you did with the decor and bottled bacteria can help to boost-start a cycle, but it won't keep it from crashing and starting over, it will just help the new cycling along. Luckily, there are things you can do immediately to help her. I would do a water change of 50-75%, and every 24hrs dose the tank with Seachem Prime. Seachem Prime detoxifies ammonia, so it's still there but your fish can't feel it. This is used as a tool for fish-in cycling, and will keep her comfortable until the tank has re-cycled. I would do 50% water changes at least every other day, if not every day. I would also recommend acquiring some Indian almond leaves and boil them on the stove, then treat that water with water conditioner and let it come to room temperature and add it to the tank. The tannins from these leaves act as an antibacterial and will help sooth and heal her. I would also keep your tank lights off at all times unless you are observing her, this will keep her less stressed. If the heater you have is adjustable or you are able to acquire an adjustable heater, bump up the temperature to 80 degrees. You could even go to 82 degrees, but go to 80 at least. Bettas do best at this temperature and it will aid in her healing. I second the advice of using a garlic supplement to stimulate her appetite. If you can get her to eat, it will greatly increase her survival odds. It's even better if you can pick up some frozen foods like frozen brine shrimp, and as a last effort to try and get her to eat I would try frozen bloodworms. I only say that I would try this last because too many bloodworms can lead to bloat for bettas, but bloodworms are the tastiest thing in the world to them so it has the best chance of getting her to eat. If she doesn't improve or gets worse in another 5-7 days I would probably recommend euthanasia with clove oil. From her symptoms she is in a very dangerous spot currently, but if she is able to hang on until you can follow all the advice I listed above, I think she has a chance of pulling through this. Good luck and keep us updated.

Those poor dojos, that is just awful, but thank you for sharing so others can learn from this experience. I agree that clove oil can be a hard transition. I keep small fish, and have had to euthanize primarily bettas and it has been really hard to get the dosage low enough for it to be seamless. The last one I had to do fought the sleeping effects pretty hard and it wasn't as peaceful as I wanted it at all. I just wanted to make sure I understood right: This is what you've been using as a euthanasia alternative to clove oil? Do you know if you can use this on all FW fish?? Thank you again for the learning experience, I'm sure many of us here want to know the best and most ethical way to help our dying ones along.

I think you should come up with some stocking ideas for each option and then decide which you would most prefer 🙂

Yeah this one will work perfectly

Yes LOL seems counterproductive doesn't it? You want zero ammonia to be your end goal, but yes you do have to start off with ammonia to get that bacteria colony started. @Pepere is right on the money with their instructions for doing a fishless cycle. Ammonia works the same way with a fish-in cycle, but the fish suffers a bit is the difference. You feed the fish, he 💩, that makes ammonia and eventually your bacteria colony grows enough to convert ammonia->nitrate->nitrite (harmless in small numbers). After it is done cycling your parameters should be 0ppm ammonia, 0ppm nitrate and 05-40ppm nitrite. I would highly recommend Brightwell Aquatics MicroBacter7 to boost your bacteria colony and give it a head start.

Betta compatibility is sooo hard because of the variance in their personalities. Generally, snails are much more easily ignored than other things. I agree that a siamese algae eater could become a bully. Shrimp are considered food more often than not I think, but if you were going to try shrimp I would definitely opt for amanos because of their coloring/camouflage 🙂

Usually I can look at them at Petco and do pretty okay, unfortunately a lot of them are already sick and look in bad shape anyway. I think I got this guy in a moment of weakness because I was missing having a betta fish in this tank so much. It just completes it.

His activity level makes it very hard to get pictures!

Hey everyone, just wanted to share my gorgeous new addition to my 33gal long community tank. I had recently lost my king male betta from a loach accident/injury and said I was not getting anymore bettas for the foreseeable future, because (except for my king) they have just been very sickly and sensitive the past couple years and I was really tired of losing them. Well I was in my local Petco the other day picking up furry children supplies, and saw this guy and couldn’t leave without him. He is gorgeous and seems so healthy now that he’s in the tank! I have really high hopes and am hoping he can have a long life. He’s so spunky and just jets around the whole tank. He also flares his fins a lot which is gorgeous. He really doesn’t like my 1 red cherry barb, but the tank is so densely decorated that they can get away from each other easily. He will flare if anyone gets too close, but hasn’t chased or nipped anyone yet. He’s not nearly as chill as my king was (he would literally school with and brush up against all my platies and guppies constantly) which makes me a little sad, but I do so love his energy. I just don’t think this tank is complete without a betta fish.

Totally fair, I've always been too scared to try and keep them too. Which is a shame because they're so cute!!

Some people make a single work, but generally hillstream loaches are best kept in groups. You could do a school of otocinculus cats, or nerite snails! I was very impressed when I got my nerite snails, they are much more active and eat a lot more algae than mystery snails.