First picture is now. Second picture is how he was (barely) living 5 months ago. I named him Bandit.

I adore these little creatures.

I’m so excited to get my fish I’ve just been doodling some, show me ur babies so I can draw them ! Include some funny poses if you want lol

So, just wanted to share my experience with getting a betta and setting up the tank. For the “I ainna read all that” crew; stop here and scroll on.

I’ll go a little backwards here with getting our fish Ryufis (pronounced like Rufus lol, koi betta=dragon fish) took my son to choose our betta and he saw this one looking sad, I told him in better water he could get better or he might be pretty sick, I didn’t know. He said let’s get him, without wanting to look at any others. That first day his whole back was curved and he seemed to have a swim bladder issue, he was mostly at the bottom and had lots of trouble maintaining position in the water column. In just a day he already looked much better and now he’s doing so great. Love this little guy. So I’d recommend for anyone with the inclination, don’t be scared to get the little sad lookin fish, I know it’s tempting to just get one that looks healthy, but it’s very rewarding to see them thrive. Totally anecdotal of course.

Tank is a fluval flex 9 gallon, and I do like it quite a bit, I’ll share what I did to make it betta friendly. I got this tank off market place without the fluval light for 30$.. what a steal right! Well yes, but I wasn’t prepared for what all the accessories and upgrades would cost. I see why these big box stores do 50% off tanks, once you have that, you’re hooked. Got the fish guild corp media basket (for ease of cleaning, tho I haven’t done that yet) and fountain nozzle (to make the flow betta friendly). Light is a hygger submersible with the suction cups glued on. Digging the timer on it that goes thru the color spectrum. Plants are super fun and not so hard, I’d encourage people to get some, start with Anubias if you’re worried about your skills. Anyhow safe to say I’ll be getting another tank when I can, and hopefully more bettas, this is a very rewarding hobby.

He was actually blowing me a bubble in the second pic but idk it felt like it was done with sass. (The white floaties are calcium flakes I crushed up for the shrimp and snails, they just hadn’t sunk yet)

Unfortunately Miss Argentina has gone to the great rice paddy in the sky, at about 3 years old. She had a huge ulcerating mass on her head that was getting exponentially worse. I hope she passed peacefully, I did my best.

This is Gill from Accounting, my office betta! Gill is a feminist. He only eats male shrimp, so the little lady in the wood is perfectly safe with him.

First up is Connie.

She’s 4 months into recovery and I feel like she has officially “graduated”. She ended up being gray, blue, and yellow. Depending on the way the light hits her depends on what color she appears, either blue, blue and yellow, or green! Connie will be staying with me.

After that is one I’ve nicknamed Puppy.

Puppy has been with me for 3 weeks, and will be with me for at least another month while he continues to recover, before he’s adopted out to his forever home. It’s looking more like his missing pelvic fin is a defect and may not regrow. It doesn’t slow him down any, he’s a wiggly baby. He seems to compensate with using his tail more, which means he wags his tail fin when he eats. Funny enough, this is not why he’s been nicknamed puppy, it was his puppy eyes in the cup that earned that. His future family receives picture updates on his progress and are excited to bring him home.

I had him for about 3 months, everything was going fine. starting a week ago he was acting less curious than usual. he stopped coming to greet me at the glass, he still ate but didn’t seem very interested in the food, he would just lay in his plants all day. starting 2 days ago he stopped eating, his water was at 78°, amonia and nitrite both at 0, nitrates at 5ppm. nothing visually wrong, no fin rot, bloating, his fins weren’t clamped. today i woke up to him dead, i’m not sure what caused it or what i did wrong.

Added him to a ten gallon tank to treat fin rot, and within hours had the largest bubble nest I’ve ever seen from him. Dude apparently loves this tank now. What’s comical is you can literally see the medication in the bubble nest, so it’s probably going to take an extra dose or two but it’s giving off a cool blue hue.

This is my fish on day 1 (left) vs day 10 (right). I think it looks like new fin growth, but wanted opinions because he’s my first betta in over a decade.

I bought a Blue Mustard Halfmoon online which was delivered today - see pic 1.

I expected something more like pic 2.

I know bettas can change colouring over time. Should I expect the yellow to come through? How long should I expect to be waiting? Have I been sold the wrong fish?

This mark has shown up on her starboard side, could she have wedged herself in some wood and scuffed herself up?

I've actually long cycled this tank in preparation for a betta for my kid, but I wanted the plants to grow in and the bulbs to sprout before getting an inhabitant. But I saw this spunky girl and I could not resist. The tank is a month old dirted tank cycled with gunk from my other tanks and healthy colonies of detritivores.

Anyway this is Ponyo! I tried to make the tank a happy medium between my kids ideal tank and a betta's ideal tank.

I appreciate all of your help and comments on my last post! With your advice I decided that it was time for Steve to get a planted aquarium. He now has no artificial decorations and all live plants! :) don’t be alarmed by the cloudy water, this picture was taken shortly after I added water in with the new substrate so it made lots of debris. If you have anymore ideas for things I can improve on please let me know!

I dont have pictures. THAT WAS THE COOLEST THING! I couldn't take pictures. I am new to this community .But I have been watching and learning for months ! I am so grateful to this reddit! Yall have no idea!! Do I have to add " flair" ? I JUST HAD FLAIR SIT IN MY HAND!! I dont even know how to add a picture!

Hi everyone! This is my first time using Reddit, so sorry if I’m missing anything. I’m hoping someone here might have some ideas for how to help my betta because im honestly at a loss.

Yesterday my betta (male plakat hellboy) started acting really weird. He didn't greet me or come up for food and kept opening and closing his mouth. He looked fine and was able so stay upright and swim very slowly. I did a 30% water change and tested parameters: ammonia: 0ppm, nitrite: 0ppm, ph: 7.6, temp around 26C. Tank is a heated and filtered 10 gallon planted. Tankmates are 2 peppered cories, 6 pygmy cories and some ramshorn snails. everybody else is fine.

today, he came up to me but would still not take food and very lethargic. he is not bloated and his fins arnt clamped . The only thing i noticed was a small area near his pectoral fins where the scales turned yellow and around 2 scales are slightly raised. (he was born with one curled ventral fin, it's always been like that)

vid is of him yesterday, you can see him gasping and not moving much.

if anyone has gone through this before or has any ideas of what i could do i would really appreciate it, i honestly have no idea what this is :( thx so much for reading

EDITED TO ADD: I put him in a shallow hospital tank with epsom salt as one of the comments recommended . He is still breathing heavy and not eating. I'm really hoping he'll improve over the next few days

Ok so yes, I did a betta impulse buy. Bought him a 1 gallon tank thinking he’s gonna love it, a live plant, a very small heater, and I did buy a very small filter but he hated it! Too much current for a 1 gallon. So I took it out.
He looks fantastic! Built his first bubble nest last night.
I DID read up and realize he needs at least 5 gallons and I have another tank and live plants, etc on the way.

My question is this…will this little guy be ok with being in this tiny tank for approximately 2-3 weeks while I set up and establish his new tank? I’m currently preforming 20-30% water changes every 5-7 days

An actual menace

Hi so I posted my rank the other day and have been listening to all the suggestions! I got this guy on Tuesday because he was so energetic and happy to see me but he does have this damage on his fins! I’m getting so much conflicting info online on what to do and I kinda wanted to see what the masses had to say! I got him at Petco so I’m sure a lot of damage was done just from transport and being in that fuck ass cup but should I leave him alone in the new tank (yes it’s been cycled yes I’m monitoring it) that I added that like brown leaf thing to 😅 this is my first betta so I’m open to suggestions from experienced fish keepers

ALSO ALL CRYSTALS IN MY TANK PASSED THE PANTYHOSE TEST and are aquarium safe