New Betta

Oooh he's pretty 

Is he a delta, a superdelta or a half moon? I can see he's not a veiltail as his tail has straight edges, but you can only see how wide his tail opens when he flares.

If I'd seen him when I was looking for my betta, I'd have bought him too!

Butterfly is the colour pattern. Body and fins next to the body of one colour, fins another colour often with the body colour repeated on the fin edges. Tricolour butterflies have a third colour on the edges of the fins.
He's a delta if, when flaring, the edges of his fins are up to 120 deg apart. If they're 120 to 180, that's superdelta, and 180 is half moon. Mine looked like a delta when I got him but as he's matured he now looks more like a superdelta.

Bettas do have a reputation for not eating after you buy them. Persevere, removing any uneaten food before it goes off. I've never heard of one starving itself to death. They can be picky about their food. I give my current betta Hikari betta food, though when I could get it I preferred Atisons. They do better on specialised betta food rather than general flakes. I also soak the pellets in watr before feeding - you'd be surprised just how much they swell up.
They also like 'live' food once a week (I use frozen live) and giving them a finely chopped, cooked, deshelled pea for one meal a week is recommended. Bettas are prone to constipation and a pea helps with that.


They can struggle with a water flow that's too strong with those big fins. Bettas can get used to a strong flow, but if yours hides in the calmest part of the tank, I would think about changing it. The filter that came with the new tank I got a couple of months ago would have plastered my betta on the opposite wall. I did have the now discontinued Hagen Elite Mini filter in his old tank so I transferred that over but it had been making a funny noise for a while so I got a new one and put the Elite sponge into the new filter.
Filters like the one in your link are fine for bettas as air powered sponge filters have less water flow. Just make sure to move the media over form the filter in there now so you don't have to do a fish-in cycle.
The filter I bought is this one. It has a hollow sponge filled with carbon, which I emptied out. The sponge is almost double the size of the Elite's so I cut the new one in half, trimmed the Elite's sponge to shape and stuffed the trimmings in the hole in the new sponge. The filter also comes with an optional spraybar which has a flow rate control knob - I have that turned down a long way.

Hi Ken...Happy New Year to you!
Brynn looks lovely...what a great New Year pressie to yourself!

Thanks Resa, and a Happy New Year to you too. 

I bought a pot of some new-on-the-market pellets for my other fish on recommendation from the chap at MA. They're called Dr Bassleer Biofish Food Garlic and they love them.  I'm going to have to take them back though as they're heavy pellets that sink straight down into the gravel.   I know he uses the same pellets in the shop tanks so perhaps he'll allow me to swap them for some Tetra Betta flakes.  Fingers crossed otherwise that's yet another fiver wasted.   

Hi again Sue.

No joy feeding again today - I'll try soaking tomorrows Betta pellets. 
Hopefully I'll get to MA and swap this garlic food out too.

I bought that air driven filter and managed to cut the back off the cartridge and remove the carbon pellets, zeolite and sponge supplied.  I replaced it with the sponge from the existing filter, cut in two to fit, with the zeolite chunks in the bottom to bulk things out a bit.  I gather this sort of filter acts like some sort of Hamburg(?) filter with the air movement acting as the driving force to pull water through the media
I'll keep a close eye on water parameters over the next few days to make sure I catch any spike and do a water change straight away if I see any irregularities.

Thanks again,
Ken

In my opinion, zeolite is not a good thing to have in a filter. It absorbs ammonia, which deprives the bacteria of food. The bacteria die off, or never grow in a brand new filter. Then the zeolite gets full, stops absorbing ammonia and with no/not enough bacteria to deal with it, the level just shoots up. Zeolite ties you in to changing the media regularly before it gets full for ever. The filter will never have any bacteria, just zeolite to remove ammonia. And because no ammonia eaters never grow, there is no nitrite made so no nitrite eaters ever grow either.

Zeolite can be useful in an emergency - eg the member on the old forum who went away on a business trip and left his wife tesing the tank - and she discovered ammonia. She used zeolite to keep the ammonia under control till her husband go home.
Or you want to set up a small tank to keep a fish under observation - zeolite can be used in this temporary situation, but not for a tank used for medicating a fish as it'll also absorb the med.


Sorry, rant over.






Removing the otos was a good idea to reduce the bioload - and also as they do need a larger tank, and a bigger shoal. Small tanks can't grow enough algae for a shoal.
Water changes are better than stress zyme. That is one that doesn't usually work. Bettas can be kept in unfiltered tanks provided water changes of at least 50% are done every day, and a 100% change once a week. So with a filter with not quite enough bacteria, water changes should be fine until the bacteria catch up.

Hi all, thought I'd give you an update...

I got quite worried over the weekend as Brynn was looking decidedly sorry for himself.  Ammonia and Nitrites were a concern and I'd had to carry out constant water changes since Friday.  He wasn't eating and because he spent most of his time resting on the bottom even his fins seemed to be suffering. 
Thankfully I think I've now got things sorted and he's looking and behaving much better.   
Because of the dodgy filtering I took out the air pumped filter and replaced it with the original powered one - with the media swapped back of course.  I've left the air stone and sponge one in place though as a nice backup.  Levels are now thankfully under control.  I'm still carrying out daily w/c's but only 2L and only as a safety net and to get him used to being mucked about.

I added a second 25w heater and between the two am managing to keep the temp at a constant 26 degrees.  (I'm sure the lowly 24 degrees I was managing with only one was contributing to his unhappiness.)

Brynn's also eating happily now - spitting the pellets out if they're not soft enough but going back later when they are.  Soaking the pellets does work to a degree but the trouble then is they sink and he has to go foraging anyway, so I might as well not bother so he at least knows the food's there.

Because I'm keeping the feeding to one corner (and the filter current tends to gather it there anyway) I've swept the floor of gravel in that area so he can get to any sunken food easily.  It means I can easily monitor how much he's eating and clean up the debris too.

Anyway, some updated pics.  First up, flaring at his reflection in the mirror I pinched from herself;  the overall tank;  then the airstone-with-sponge that cost me the grand sum of £2.50...