We got a fish...

[Beckie]

And I'm obsessed with making sure the thing is still alive! It's a Betta and doesn't move a lot anyway, so sometimes it just looks dead. I find myself going to the tank, peering in at the little thing and then tapping the glass lightly to see if it will move.
It was looking pretty shabby last night. It's food was still in the tank floating on top and I kept thinking it wasn't eating. I turned on the light for about 5 minutes and it swam to the top and started to eat. I think it couldn't see the food before. I turned the light on again today when we fed it and it went right to the top and ate.
Since my mother warned me to not leave the light on because it could heat the water too much, I'm now obsessing over the temperature of the water when the light is on during feeding time.
Just what I needed! Something else to distract me from my chores. LOL

Beckie

[lovemyson]

Hi Beckie,

Your post made me laugh and think of my 6 year old son who has 2 Betta fish (both in their own tanks!) He does the same thing, he is so worried about them. I work as a Vet Tech in an animal hospital and at least 1-2 times a week he thinks the fish are sick and wants me to take them to work. I have to constantly reassure him that they are fine. The only time I have seen a Betta fish die was when the cover was left off the top of the tank and the fish jumped out......Good luck with your fish!

[rosyred45]

Oh, my, I had to laugh, I do the same thing. My kids got really worried over our fish tank one day.(we have a 55 gal.)

Some how our algea eater (with a nasty attitude) decided he didn't like the water. He jumped out by the filters, and as luck would have it, my husband found him. Thank God it wasn't one of the kids.

He was still "breathing" so I threw him back in the tank, to which he just sunk. My husband laughed at me the rest of the week. And Mind you we couldn't flush him because he was about 10" long.

Oh, your fish will be ok, our gold fish are worse than kids. If the lights are on in the tank, they assume the "parade" position and follow us back and forth across the room. All lined up in a row.

It's quite comical. Fish have personalities too!!
Kaiti

[Honeysmom]

We had a Betta once. It bought his for Honey when he was about 2 1/2 yo. HOney could hardly talk so he name him Dadaja. One day Dadaja was gone. I asked Honey where he was, but he just looked at me funny. I looked everywhere and I couldn't find him. About 2 hours later he was back in the tank...floating

Right next to him in the tank was a travel size bottle of baby lotion. From what I can gather Honey thought Dadaja needed lotion on him just like Honey after a bath. So he lubed him up and put him back. Poor fish

[lovemyson]

We have finally convinced my son that the fish do not need toys to play with. This after finding little toy soldiers and marbles etc, in the fish tank. He would throw odd stuff in there and the fish would have no room to swim around.......it was cute but poor fish!

[rosyred45]

Toys, that reminds me:
When we first got this tank about 2 yrs ago, it was around Halloween, and since we had just started my son's elemination diet, he knew that he couldn't have the candy.........

SO GUESS WHO GOT IT?!?!?!?!?!
Kaiti
I think it took about 2 weeks to totally rid everything of all of the chocolate.

[eaccae]

Ahhh the betta! Don't worry too much about the temperature - they can hang out in unheated or heated tanks. Our tank was usually around 76 degrees - higher in the summer - always having to drop ice cubes in the tank. It's normal for them to appear dead - they kind of just hang out. You'll know if it's dead - it will be either be floating on top or discolored (this happens quickly) and laying on its side on the bottom. Ours always hides among the plants and rocks during the day - mornings and at night he usually makes his appearance.

Have fun!!