Think Fish Keepers Daily News. [2016-2019]

It does seem, reading from everyone's experiences in recent years, that bettas are indeed getting weaker.

As for the increasingly vertical swimming, I can't advise for bettas but I have noticed other fish altering their swimming position and find that it does catch up with them in time. I had a go-to, graded list for goldfish with swimbladder difficulties - chopped pea and live/frozen food to induce any intestinal clearout, salt (if the previous didn't work after a week or so), anti-bacterial medication (if the previous didn't work after a week or so) - but this doesn't seem to work or is necessarily appropriate for my tropicals.

I've had another fatality this afternoon of a neon green rasbora - that leaves me with only one of the 12 I had.  It wasn't entirely unexpected - his spine was ever-so-slightly curved at the outset but became increasingly so over time (perhaps due to enjoying swimming into the current), and I'd been noticing just a day or two how much the back half of his spine was downward-pointing and how thin he had become, plus the difficulties he had securing food and almost toppling over himself in an effort to retrieve it.  Like the couple of NGRs who died in Sept, he was fine earlier in the day but was missing during my 4th headcount/roll-call of the day and was found lifeless behind a stone. His curved spine is particularly obvious now that he's out of the water.  The final NGR looks perfectly healthy, as did the first of the two which died in Sept, but I have an inkling she'll also experience a sudden demise before the year is out.

Sorry to hear that you've had another fatality @fcmf   

I hope Greta is ok @Matt

I have found that my eyesight isn't what it used to be, even with glasses, so the peppered cory fry are quite difficult to see. They are from the eggs I found in the river tank last weekend, which I moved into a smaller tank with an internal filter. A few fatalities were found in the filter sponge, but the live ones were collected from the waste bucket and returned to the tank. I'll probably end up taking these to the shop as I don't want to encourage in-breeding in the tank.

@Matt - ah, if there's bloating (an internal blockage), then you'd be better doing a salt bath with Epsom salt (magnesium sulphate) as opposed to aquarium salt (sodium chloride). Sue has a good explanation on here somewhere about what each is used for.

Thanks, @Littlefish.  Your teeny-weeny peppered cory fry are just gorgeous - congratulations!    [With you not around to keep them entertained / in check, they're clearly taking advantage of that situation and entertaining themselves in other ways.  ]

Re eyesight, one thing I've definitely noticed with having been short-sighted but also becoming long-sighted is that looking at fish in a LFS is impossible - neither set of glasses, nor plain eyesight, seems adequate. At least with everything else, there is a suitable option (either set of glasses or no glasses at all) but there needs to be a bespoke set of glasses specifically for looking at fish in a LFS!

I have a new betta  He's tiny, white with pink fins, and very energetic, making photos tricky. He also killed a shrimp today. I think I need to remove them to the relative safety of the main tank.

The dose rate is 1 teaspoon per gallon (or 1 x 5 ml spoonful per 3.75 litres) of tank water. Leave the fish in for up to 30 minutes twice a day, but remove the fish immediately if it shows any signs of stress.

What an evening. I must do about ten headcounts a day. One of the new cardinals, present at the 18:30 headcount, was missing at 20:10. I opened and shut the lid - no result - so, at this stage, I was looking for a body. I used a pair of plant tongs and gave each plant a prod, to no avail. Next, I used it to give each rock a prod, again to no avail. The leaves were lifted in turn, the wood too. Still no apparition. Out came every piece of decor, piece by piece. Mr FCMF checked the floor - no sign of anything. Given previous experiences, the filter is attached to the tank walls with ultra-strong magnets, and filter wool also tucked in. By this point, I began to wonder if cannibalism had taken place. Only when the final piece - a large plant pot which I keep some spare filter media in and which is kept under the filter was removed did a very washed-out but living cardinal appear.  I wonder if this is the same cardinal who hid inside a leaf during the first water change of the QT, resulting in similar feelings of , or whether he'd somehow got wedged in by accident. I must have aged by about 5 years in the space of a couple of hours!

Anyway, what a lovely antidote to all that to read of @Sue's lovely news. Looking forward to seeing a photo of the new betta soon! 

Dear nerite snails,

Seriously, what do you use to attach your eggs to surfaces? I couldn't get them off a piece of wood with a tooth brush or a nail brish. 
Even the shrimp and bristlenose don't seem to be able to shift the eggs.
Eventually I gave up and decided that spotty wood was perfectly acceptable.

Kind regards,

Donna

Even those plastic plant labels stuck in the pots at the garden centre will get nerite eggs off glass. Plastic decor needs a bit more work, but wood is impossible as they are stuck so hard the wood underneath the egg comes away before the egg comes off the wood. I have given up trying and have put up with spotty wood for years 

Apparently the panda cories and assassin snail have all been "busy" while I've been away.
I've only found a couple of panda fry so far, and am having to go through the waste buckets to double check. 

You don't feed anything like dried bloodworms straight from the pack do you? I know bettas have trouble with these as they soak up water inside the fish and swell up causing problems for the fish.

Daphnia (live or defrosted frozen) is another good 'treatment' for constipation.



My new betta has calmed down a bit and seems to ignoring the shrimps for now. He did split his tail on something, so I'm waiting till it's completely healed before attempting a photo. He must have caught it on something as it was just a straight tear down between the rays. These tears do heal completely and there's just a tiny bit to go.