Letters of a Betta Addict

So they’re getting closer now lol.

Due to some scheduling conflicts between the breeder and myself they won’t be shipped out until after the February break. Not so bad but there is light at the end of the tunnel now lol.

Yeah that’s pretty much all I have to say. I’ll work in a spot for them in the new tank stand design that then we’re almost golden to go

P.S. Here are some updated pics from the breeder of the Rosetail Male.

So I suppose I should record the events of the weekend.

I got back to the apartment Friday evening and did a check. Patch and Ember were looking poorly and Babie was MIA. After I searched the tank and surrounding area there was still no sign of her. I can only conclude that the Cory’s must have taken care of her body. RIP my beautiful baby girl… :’(

I did a tank vac and water change for everyone, destroyed part of Ember’s tank by accident with the Python. From now on no Python in tanks under 20 gals without help… especially the el-natural tanks. I put a new filter in with Ember. It’s an old box filter I found so I hope that it’ll fix the filter issues that I’ve been having with him. Once I fixed that I went to Wally because I needed air-line tubing. And with that fateful decision began a new chapter in my fish keeping experiance.

The New Chapter:

Usually when I’ve had a really bad few days a trip to any store typically results in a  betta following me home. However I stopped in all my usual fish stores and not a single one of those boys or girls looked out at me and declared, “Mine! My person! Now get me outta here.” I guess after losing my two favorite Betta babies I just wasn’t ready for a new one. I’d just moved Mama into Coolie’s 5 gal and upgraded Wraith into her 3 gal but I just wasn’t ready for a new baby. So during this bit of soul searching I ended up wandering into Wal-Mart- and falling in love.

I’m serious it was a love at first site moment. My MTS kicked in and all I could do was watch him. I could maybe still have walked away at this point yet. Could have held onto common sense… but then that thought crossed my mind. “Charlie- you’re name is Charlie…” That was it the war was over. Now it wasn’t just an adorable little Fancy Goldie that I wanted to take home. It was Charlie, and he was coming home with me. I put up a last struggle, I argued against it. No tank cycled, I wanted to paint the tank and stand, no TSS… but then I realized… this was walmart. The likely hood that these guys would be here alive and well when I came back next week was… slim to say the least. So off my mind goes trying to figure out a compromise.Inspired by a thread I’d read on Fishlore I wend off in search of a rubber-maid tub.

The resulting set-up (I may have gotten carried away) was a jumbo size rubbermaid tub (about 4′long and 18″ high) a giant size Lily, 2 adorable fancy goldie babies and 1 snail. Once I had it all set up i started to have doubts (mostly because the tub was bowing alarmingly). I left it but the next morning I gave in and moved them over to the 56 gal. Luckily I had a partial bottle of cycle from back in the day so I dosed with that to get them through the week. When I go back I pick up some quick drying paint and put them in a temporary tub overnight while the stand and everything dries. Then I’ll re-fill and re-dose with cycle until I get back again just prior to orientation.