Post by Suzie Q on Jan 5, 2007 22:08:03 GMT -5
(copied from old forum-retitled)
I am down to 4 babies. The largest one IS a male...it's fins are getting LONG! He is very lethargic. He lays on the bottom of the tank most of the time (usually upright, but last night, he was on his side..I though he died, but when I went to net him, he "woke up"). He was upright this morning before I left, and I treated the tank lastnight and this morning with melifix (removed carbon)?, and fed tetracycline this morning (bottle says they eat it?...can't find it in capsule form). I saw him come up for air this morning, but it seemed like it was a lot of trouble for him to get to the surface...when he swims, his "butt" drags. I am ordering meds form Carl today, so I should be covered on what I need....
Now my question is: is the lethargic behavior normal for 8 week old male bettas (the other 3 are smaller than him, and are swimming normal)? I have not made it this far before, and I don't want to loose the only 4 I have left. I change the water 90 % weekly(return the water they are in...I acclimate them)...(vac bottom daily, so I guess that is a 10% water change daily?..10g tank, and I remove around 1g or so of water). I treat the water with (bottle at home) an "instant" treatment, and add 1 tbsp per 10g of salt...do I need more salt?..less salt? Other than that, I don't add any other chem to the tank. When I had swords, I was always adding some chem or another to try to keep the Amonia, ph and everything else in ck...I think I did more damage than good. I only have a corner filter going, so is the filtration inadiquit (sp)?...because it does not have a "bio-filter", is that my problem? I don't test the water for ph and such, because I am changing it so much...am I changing it too much? I am still feeding fd brine shrimp...are they dying of malnutrition? They won't eat live brine shrimp...when I lost all those others, I had tried feeding bloodworms crushed into a powder)...I stopped this when the babies got sick (also due to overfeeding...used to snails cleaning up any uneaten food...now again have snails in tank)... I am trying to be very detailed...sorry if it is too much info...
Ask questions and I will answer, so hopefully this problem can be resolved before I loose all the babies
I am down to 4 babies. The largest one IS a male...it's fins are getting LONG! He is very lethargic. He lays on the bottom of the tank most of the time (usually upright, but last night, he was on his side..I though he died, but when I went to net him, he "woke up"). He was upright this morning before I left, and I treated the tank lastnight and this morning with melifix (removed carbon)?, and fed tetracycline this morning (bottle says they eat it?...can't find it in capsule form). I saw him come up for air this morning, but it seemed like it was a lot of trouble for him to get to the surface...when he swims, his "butt" drags. I am ordering meds form Carl today, so I should be covered on what I need....
Now my question is: is the lethargic behavior normal for 8 week old male bettas (the other 3 are smaller than him, and are swimming normal)? I have not made it this far before, and I don't want to loose the only 4 I have left. I change the water 90 % weekly(return the water they are in...I acclimate them)...(vac bottom daily, so I guess that is a 10% water change daily?..10g tank, and I remove around 1g or so of water). I treat the water with (bottle at home) an "instant" treatment, and add 1 tbsp per 10g of salt...do I need more salt?..less salt? Other than that, I don't add any other chem to the tank. When I had swords, I was always adding some chem or another to try to keep the Amonia, ph and everything else in ck...I think I did more damage than good. I only have a corner filter going, so is the filtration inadiquit (sp)?...because it does not have a "bio-filter", is that my problem? I don't test the water for ph and such, because I am changing it so much...am I changing it too much? I am still feeding fd brine shrimp...are they dying of malnutrition? They won't eat live brine shrimp...when I lost all those others, I had tried feeding bloodworms crushed into a powder)...I stopped this when the babies got sick (also due to overfeeding...used to snails cleaning up any uneaten food...now again have snails in tank)... I am trying to be very detailed...sorry if it is too much info...
Ask questions and I will answer, so hopefully this problem can be resolved before I loose all the babies