Letters of a Betta Addict

Ok so I may or may not do more of these “How To” sort of articles but I noticed that google sent someone here looking for “what to do when you receive your fish from  a transhipper?”. Now this shipment of betta’s has been the first set of fish that I’ve ever had shipped to me period but I never did mention anything about what I did in regards to handling them once I got them. So here is a brief run-down of how it happened.

1) Spent all morning online hitting re-fresh on the tracking number of the shipment.

2) Barely restrained myself from beating the FedEx guy to the door (just in case it was someone elces package)

3) Signed for the package then walked carefully up the stairs trying to restrain my giddyness.

4) Immediatly opened the box (remembered to take a few pictures first)

5) Dug through the newspaper and insulation to find each of the newspaper wrapped treasures.

6) Un wrapped each betta in their bag from the newspaper and tried to resist hugging the bags (obviously couldn’t cuddle the fish but it was the equivalent)

7) Checked to make sure there were no DOA’s

Took many many pictures

9) Contacted the sellers to let them know that their fish had arrived safely, re-packed everyone in with the heat-packs and took them to the new apartment where their new homes were ready and waiting.

Once I had them home the tricky part began. Acclimating the new kids to their new water.

There are alot of things that you’ll read about in regards to acclimating new fish, different techniques and methods. What I did probably wasn’t very proper but it’s turned out alright for me.

First I have to say that everyone is in QT. I’m only sharing equipment between fish from the same breeder, everyone has a separate volume/container of water, disease and bio-security are something that I take fairly seriously. None of the new fish are sharing equipment with my “pets” other then the bucket, however the new kids “used” tank water has a separate bucket just for emptying the tanks, my big bucket I’m only using to fill the tanks.

Right back on topic, acclimatizating. I left the bags to float in the tanks for about 15 minuets or so to allow them to warm up (they arrived pretty chilly). For the Ontario Betta’s, I decided after a bit of debate to just add them straight into the tank. Water and all. I figured that water in Ontario couldn’t be that different from me, and they’d only been in their bag water since Tuesday.  For the Thai kids I did a bit of a different method. I have a 1cc syringe so I cut their bags open then used the syringe to slowly bit by bit double the amount of water in the bag (which took about 10 minuets) then I tipped the bag and the fish slipped out. Most of the time when I did this most of the water in the bag actually stayed in the bag so it worked pretty well. Someone on Fishlore mentioned that once you open the bag you want to get the fish out of there fairly quickly since as the excess CO2 in the bag escapes the pH in the bag will spike rapidly and can cause extra problems. I didn’t notice anything like that but then in terms of buffering abilities my test-kit has informed me that my water is the equivalent of super-man. I wish I’d thought to keep some of the Thai water just to see what some of the parameters are but I didn’t, maybe I’ll remember to next time.  My acclimation may not have been perfect but the Thai kids aren’t any the worse for wear for it, (those boys are flaring machines!).

Some things that I’ve learned from this experiance and will try to remember for next time?

1) Make sure that you have scissors or a knife handy to get into the boxes.

2) Most deliveries won’t occur until after 8 am at the earliest (probably) waiting at 6 may have been a bit extreme on my part.

3) Make sure your tank (or QT tank) is ready and has all the nessecary bits and pieces.

4) Betta’s are tough tough little fishes, they’re not all looks :p

I don’t know if that was helpful or not. I hope that it may help someone else out and if you have any questions feel free to ask :p