A nice neat little box arrived on my desk today with 4 gorgeous fish in it.
Cornelius and 2 of his buddies, along with a gorgeous little girl.

It looks like little Cornelius might have sustained some kind of swim bladder irritation on his way here and the 2 other boys appear to be pretty shocked after the long haul. They're all resting comfortably in a covered cup until we make the trek home later today to start acclimating.

I'm planning a very nice, quiet peaceful evening at home for them.
I have several water changes to do, and these boys and little girly will be acclimating while I work on the other fish.

I don't have pics yet because I don't want to torment these guys anymore today - they've been thru quite a journey.

I love them all. :wub:

Maybe hal has pics of them that he could post in here so you can all see them.

WOU... WHO IS THAT SANTA CLAUS HUH???
Very early CHRISTMAS present you got here. LOL

:laugh: :laugh: :laugh:

Yes.
VERY nice xmas present, indeed. :)

Everyone in my department has been coming over and asking if they can have one.
I'm thinking of putting up some yellow police tape around my desk to keep them away.
:lol:

I can't wait to see these guys in a tank with some pretty decor and some light on them once they're feeling better.

Well, if they're anything like rocko, they'll be pretty awesome!

I'm glad you like them, BettaMomma! I wanted you to have something special for all your work rescuing bettas. But now you've jumped into the fire!!! :lol:

The best I can tell you is to try to re-create the environment they had here until you transition them to your regular routine. I keep the bettas at 80 degrees. ALSO, try to bring down your pH as close to 7.0 as you can. That could be tough, because if your regular water is over 8.0, your KH will probably keep driving the pH up to where your water is naturally. You may want to consider mixing some distilled water with some of your tap water, and then use a water conditioner - my jarred fish are in BE treated water. But that's up to you... you might consider trying it until you can slowly adjust them up higher. It would just shock them more to try to acclimate them to a very high pH after they're already stressed from shipping.

Cornelius isn't going to be quite right - if he's the one that appears to be having swim bladder issues, it might just be him. The warmth, trying to give them a little lower pH, and the c. silver will help...

So, thanks for all your efforts rescuing the abused bettas of Wal-Mart, the LFSs in your area, and all the people who buy the pretty little fish in the little cup and don't realize what they're getting into. :thanks: I hope having a chance to start with some healthy fish will be enjoyable to you!

The little girl is a sweetie, isn't she? I think she would be good for a beginning breeder to start with... :laugh:

:pft: As long as she lives to be about 5 years old, cuz that's when I'd be ready to start breeding bettas. ha!

Anyway, I'm having a hell of a time getting this water adjusted to their ph. NOTHING has worked. I have decided to slowly start acclimating the little girl and the peach boy - they both came thru the shipping the best. They're getting about a tablespoon of my water added to their water about every half hour or so. It could be an all-nighter, but if that's what it takes....

In fact, the little peach boy has snarfed down a few bloodworms. Nobody else was interested so I took them back out.

They'll be at 80 degrees, that's no problem.

I'm afraid I might just be forced to acclimate them to the water I have.

uhhh? :worthless:

Small problem - they're still in styrofoam and that's NOT see-thru.
They're gonna be acclimating for a while yet.
THEN you'll see pics.



IF you're lucky.
:lol:

it's christmas in september!!!!!

can't wait to see the pic's!! :drunk:

Oh my god yes.
These fish are just beautiful.
I can't wait to see them swim around their new tanks.
I'm SOOO impatient but the acclimating is mucho important. :)

I have their tanks all ready to go - and I *think* I'm going to just acclimate them over night. Set my alarm every few hours and get them in overnight.

The girly is going faster - she's very strong and very active.

Pics to come.

Wee! how fun for you!
Hopefully this weekend I'll get a new tank, plants, and marbles for my lil' Horatio :D
I can't waiiiiit to see pictures, but I won't poke and prod you....
yet...
:laugh:

Okay - well only 2 of them would let me get pics of them so far.
They're still in their cups. The only one I know of that had a name before was Cornelius. Here he is:

And I went and looked up greek god names. I've decided on Helios (greek god of the sun cuz he's *that* color), Poseidon (greek god of the sea) and Aphrodite. OH!! And it just so happens that cornelius is also a roman god. :)

And here's Helios:


Better side-view pics will be coming later when they're acclimated and happier.

Here are some of Aphrodite - she's in her new tank.



And here's where she'll live for now... (i have some silk plants @ work that I am going to bring home for her tomorrow)

hah! looking good! can't wait to see 'em all comfy in their new homes. :)

Awww!! What sweeties! That first face shot of her is awesome. Good job!! The other three will be fine.

OH! About the BWE or IAL, it doesn't lower pH per se, but it makes the water really soft. I'd maybe pick up a few gallons of spring water and add that to the tanks.

Hope they're doing well!

Here's everyone:

Helios:



Cornelius:



Poseidon:


and Aphrodite is above.

:)

They look good!

Just to know - the Golden male is a fish Wasan sent me as an extra. He's not a spawn sibling of the crew...

Yeah, watch them closely. If you start having any trouble with them you know what the problem will be related to, and will need to figure out a way to bring down the pH - at least to 7.4. Refer to this post:

http://tropicalfishchat.net/index.php?showtopic=4359&hl=

Know anyone with a reverse osmosis unit they want to sell??? ...into collecting rainwater???

Semp keeps her fish in a higher pH - and maintains them by changing water every day to keep the ammonia low and non-toxic. Another suggestion might be to get a small bottle of Prime. It neutralizes ammonia. Use 2 drops per gallon.

Ohhh, BTW - see how heavy bodied that little girl is? She might need to be bred right away. There's a possiblity she could just drop the eggs and you won't have to worry about breeding her. On the other hand, there's ALSO the possibility she could become egg bound - and it could kill her if she's not bred. It's true - just ask your favorite Malaysian/Chinese mentor...

Good luck!

BettaMomma-They look awesome!!!
man...this makes me wanna go shopping... :whistle: I'll settle on new decorations I suppose :D

justhal- About the egg-bound thing...I've read several times that isn't it fairly rare to happen??? I have 3 girls right now and NONE of them have become egg bound. Fatima I've had since April 8th, she's by far the oldest out of the latter 2 that I have...and not once has she ever had problems.
If being egg bound were a problem...I'm sure anyone with females besides myself, or female community tanks, would see more of it if it were really common place.

Just my opinion :smoke:

Yep, I will keep a very close eye on them.
I have no problems with changing their water out every day.
2 of them are in 1/2 gallon tanks for now so i will most likely be doing that anyway until I upgrade them.

Let me ask you about the eggbound thing - I have 9 other girls who have never been bred and they're all perfectly fine - why would this girl be more prone to it? I'm confused. I have no plans to breed - no time, no room, etc. so I doubt very highly that she's gonna get bred.

Anyway - everybody ate breakfast this morning, even freaked-out little Cornelius. I think he's feeling much better and has settled down a little bit.

Cornelius is in a 2.5g tank that's about 2/3 full. He got the biggest tank cuz he seemed like he was the most in need. But, I think I might move him to a smaller tank because he really can't swim much anyway.

You know - I had a thought.
I had bought a PUR water filter that severely brought down the PH level of my water.
It ended up killing one of my fish because it was such a severe swing in ph BUT...

I was thinking...
I wonder if I could get another one of those (I threw it away when it killed jack) and use that for these fish. The ph would be much lower and the water much softer.

Hmm....
I suppose I'd have to test all the params of it first.

Beautiful new additions BettaMomma. I also love the first picture of Aphrodite. She has such an adorable little face! How many does that make for you in all now? I don't think I can count that high. :lol:

Oh boy.
I think I lost count some time ago.
But, here we go. I have:

1 Harvey
2 Archie
3 Charlie
4 Jasper
5 Lucky
6 Louis
7 Six
8 Petey
9 Gabriel
10 Oscar
11 Mermaid Man
12 Barnacle Boy
13 Spongebob
14 Patrick
15 Squidward
16 Helios
17 Cornelius
18 Poseidon
19 Ivory
20 Nidia
21 Torrie
22 LuLu
23 Liza
24 Pearl
25 Cloey
26 Millie
27 Daisy
28 Aphrodite

So 28 I guess. :)
And not to forget the ones that were not with me nearly long enough - Amos, Simon, Blue, Nellie and Larry.

Hmm - I'm going to work on a little collage of all their photos today.
Sadly, that sounds really fun to me.
AND of course Zeus and Plankton the snails.
Yeah, I think the inn is full. :lol: :lol:

If you don't want to breed your females, don't feed them a bunch of food. I still have a bunch of females in the 75 gallon and I only feed them once a day and I let them starving on sunday. :) All the girls are doing fine there. :)

Yeah, feeding can control the possibility of them getting eggbound.

Actually, the mother of this spawn used to just drop eggs. I never worried about her getting eggbound. If she was ready to spawn and didn't, she just let loose!

I have a tank of females ALL ready to breed! But none of them has just dropped eggs, so I don't know if it will hold true for these or not.

HEY - if you don't want to breed them, maybe you could let Jason and Alison borrow them for a week or two and maybe they could spawn them??? ...something to consider if push comes to shove.

You really should try to breed them, BettaMomma! It's fun! and you'd enjoy the experience of seeing your home-bred babies go to good homes.

You should have sent me a female for rocko woo :laugh: good thing I have the yeevia marble girl.

Well as far as the feeding thing, she is VERY particular about where/when/how much/what (etc.) she eats. Crimeny, she won't even eat the pellets unelss they are dropped into the right spot in the tank. lol

OH - I came home to a beautiful little bubblenest from Helios and Poseidon today. And little Cornelius ate a few bits of food a bit ago again. I'm trying to spread out his eating so he doesn't get an over-full belly and worsen his swim bladder issues. The poor kid - he really struggles. Oh well - he LOVES it when I get right down to the tank and talk to him. He wiggles his way over. He's such a sweet little guy :wub:

Jason - I WOULD have, but you and Alison kept saying how filled up you were! I think Rocko would have some interesting babies too...

BM - yeah, Cornelius is a gentle soul. I'm glad he's with you - I couldn't give him the attention you can. He's not too demanding, unlike my little girls! And he's not a big mover, so he really doesn't need a lot of space.

I'm surprised ANY of them eat dry food! See - they must be comfortable with you already.

So ALL the adoptees have made it to their new homes! :thanks: I appreciate it, everyone! Now that you have them, you can probably understand that no matter how off kilter they are, I didn't have the heart to stick them in the freezer, feed them to an oscar, OR cut their little heads off with a razor blade! :cuss: That would have made me sick to my stomach...

THANKS AGAIN!

Filled up on males, yeah :laugh: there's always room for a little girl.

i am so happy to have my max, turk and copper. :wub: now if only max weren't petrified of me.... :crazy:

Aaaah I came home to even bigger bubblenests!
Yeehaw!
Everybody has now eaten at least some pellets and some bloodworms.
jay