New Betta

Well, after months of searching for a worthy specimen to replace my previous Betta splendens, I found a beautiful male in a local LFS. He's teal coloured with red accents to his fins. However, I don't think he's the regular type of Betta as his fins are more rounded and not as straggly as the usual ones. I'll post a photo as soon as I can get one of him staying still because he's been whizzing around his Bachelor Pad since I got him.

He sounds a nice little fish Mary - look forward to seeing him

Yes, me too

I love bettas. I keep wanting to go and get one, but cant make my mind up what to do with my new tank!

Well, bugger it anyway. I found my male Betta dead this evening. I had carried out a water change this afternoon and he seemed fine but when I examined his body, I noticed some subdermal lumps so another fish death to file under the category of "Unknown Causes"...

could it have been WS starting ?

No, it wasn't Whitespot and it wouldn't kill that quickly anyway. I guess he just wasn't a healthy specimen to begin with even though he looked fine to me. Boo. Another fish bites the dust...Number 20 to date.

really that many ??? i have lost 3 fighters due to cycling a tank (LFS said that they would be fine) 3 guppies same reason for 2 of them the other tried to do a free willy out of the tank and 1 endler (unknown) and 2 puffers plug socket but then i only have kept fish for 4mths

Really, you've lost 20 fish? That's such a shame!

I think there must be something dodgy about the suppliers to your lfs Mary, because I know you are careful about acclimatising the fish, water changes etc.

Have you ever thought of using one of the online suppliers and bypassing the lfs all together? It may help cut down on your losses.

That;s a shame to have lost so many fish Mary, did they all get some sort of disease or something?

Oh Mary... sorry to hear that, I know how long you took to choose him too

The only issue with ordering fish online is the postage. We paid £18 due to them packing with a heat pack, double bagging & a poly box to keep the heat in, but we had 16 fish at £2 or £3 each instead of around £10 each. If you ordered just one or two fish, they'd work out very expensive

Also, most places wont post if the weather is 4ºC or below

Bad luck Mary, that's a real shame. Are you getting another one, and would you try a maill order company?

Well there are no online fish companies in Ireland so unfortunately, that's not an option. I've kept a record of all the fish deaths and while I could explain some of the deaths e.g. lost some due to cycling, various diseases/accidents; exactly half died of unknown causes i.e. eating/swimming fine one day, dead the next so I can only conclude that they weren't healthy specimens to begin with.

Although I initially thought that the Betta had subdermal lumps, in retrospect, I think that its death was an unfortunate accident. It was always zooming around its Bachelor Pad and I found it lying dead next to the fake rock arch so I have a feeling that it actually knocked itself out. Maybe I should've dunked it in whiskey to revive it instead of burying it straight away...

It's not all doom and gloom though as I have 50 fish that are surviving and thriving so this is a good example of Natural Selection at work. I'll just have to go to looking for another nice Betta.

I didn't know you had 50 fish Mary - that's quite a collection isn't it. I'm sorry if it's listed somewhere but what fish do you have?

Eek! Do you really want to know? Your best bet would be to check out my tanks in the Setups section. I think that has an updated list. for each tank. If not, I'll update it asap.

It's a good job you dont have them all listed in your sig Mary - it would take up the whole page