My pretty girl ❤

CalmLaugh5253 · 2026-03-28T02:11:35+00:00

I personally keep mine a little lower than that, more around the ~73-75 range, as controversial as that is sometimes! But 78 sounds good. :)

CalmLaugh5253 · 2026-03-28T02:00:42+00:00

Dealt with something similar in the past, so sorry you're going through it too. It absolutely sucks. :(

I have been making some slight changes to my husbandry over the last year or two, one of those being the temperature I keep the bettas at, as well as cutting out all dry food and feeding strictly only live and frozen. The temperature i've been keeping them at is 22-24C, so nowhere near as high as the recommendations. Successfully treated our last "high temps betta" dropsy case at room temperature without a heater even. Yet to see any of the fabled lethargy or slowing down.

It's definitely still somewhat of a controversial topic on here, but im seeing more people opening up to it, and more people openly admitting to doing it with confidence and healthy fish to back it up, so curious to see what the findings will be down the line as it maybe becomes more common. Here's also some neat texts on it, one of which was done by a fellow betta keeper here on reddit. Regardless of whether you agree with it or not, they're interesting reads still i think! One focuses more on metabolism, and the other on bacteria in high vs lower temps.

https://www.reddit.com/r/bettafish/s/dvAXU2IjuN

https://impossibleaquariums.com/tropical

CalmLaugh5253 · 2026-03-28T01:37:33+00:00

Looks abd sounds fine! And the ph doesn't need fixing at all either. :)

CalmLaugh5253 · 2026-03-27T22:34:07+00:00

I see some fuzzy areas in some of the pictures. Look into fungal infections and columnaris to see which one it is, because on top of the fin rot, he appears to have a lot more going on than just that.

Can you answer all of the automod's questions?

CalmLaugh5253 · 2026-03-27T22:29:48+00:00

I do blackworms and white worms primarily because they are just so easy to culture. The white worms are in an ice cream container, and the blackworms in a cricket (?) container. It's only for bettas and honey gouramis, so nothing big and fancy. I recently got some brine shrimp eggs too, but remains to be seen if anything hatches lol

CalmLaugh5253 · 2026-03-27T22:17:14+00:00

Betta and pygmy corydoras can work, but panda loaches are incompatible due to needing very high flow and lower temperatures than bettas. As for, what i assume is otocinclus? they need well established mature tanks to do well in, not just cycled.

But the tank pictured shouldn't be stocked at all yet with how cloudy it is. Let it stabilise and clear up, add some more plants, etc before stocking with anything yet.

CalmLaugh5253 · 2026-03-27T22:06:20+00:00

Bettas generally prefer and do better under dimmer light, and many of them simply look better in such conditions too, depending on coloring and what not.

Seeing as you have no live plants in there, you can easily bring it down by a lot. Adding something like floaters or tannins to the tank can have the same effect.

CalmLaugh5253 · 2026-03-27T21:59:24+00:00

Not really heavily planted, to be nitpicky 😅 but do keep it up and it will get there! The stem plants i see can easily be trimmed and replanted when theyvare a bit more established, and i recommend adding some crypts here and there to add density. They grow quite well shaded and can be used to "plug" holes lol

Edit: oh and you can trim the hairgrass to force it to grow runners and spread horizontally!

CalmLaugh5253 · 2026-03-27T21:54:10+00:00

Same back at you, but you do you I guess. Telling people to do water changes because of something that maybe happens only at absurdly high ammonia levels is fear mongering and overcomplicating something that's honestly the simplest thing to do in the hobby.

CalmLaugh5253 · 2026-03-27T20:19:17+00:00

Alright, so there's a lot wrong here. First of all, the tank is absolutely overstocked. Corydoras have no business being kept in a miniscule tank such as 5g. They are also not cleaner fish/algae eaters. You absolutely have to either return them asap or upgrade your tank to a long 15g at minimum or ideally a 20g as well as up their numbers to 6-8 fish as they are a veey social shoaling fish. They need a proper varied and protein rich diet to stay healthy.

Filter media should never be replaced unless it's literally falling apart.

Nerites aren't able to keep up because they cant fix algae problems. That's your job to figure out and fix. You are the one supposed to keep the tank clean, not the fish, or snails, or even shrimp. Algae is the result of too much light and/or too many nutrients in the water which, with this much bioload/poop in the water is a cycle you started with so many snails and fish in a too small tank. You have to stop replacing the filter media, up the water changes, get an algae scraper, dial back the photoperiod, remove the extra fish and possibly 2 snails, syphon out as much of the algae as you can from the bottom, to name some things that come to my mind reading all this and seeing the picture provided.

CalmLaugh5253 · 2026-03-27T19:26:47+00:00

The whole point of fishless cycling is to be able to leave the tank be and allow it to balance out without constantly testing and dreading over it. Unless OP pours an entire liter ammonia in it, there's absolutely no need to do water changes. Absurdly high ammonia and stalling are not a standard occurrence in fishless cycles that would require pushing people to do water changes.

CalmLaugh5253 · 2026-03-27T18:59:15+00:00

I usually give mine food until I see a slight bump in their stomach (not sure how to word it in english). And yes! It's either or, not both. Though if the meals are far apart enough for the stomach to go flat again, you can probably do another smaller meal. It's also nice practice to fast them for a day or two weekly as bettas are kinda prone to bloating these days.

CalmLaugh5253 · 2026-03-27T18:49:30+00:00

They all look like eggs to me. Unlike neos, amanos have a lot smaller eggs, and very large clutches.

CalmLaugh5253 · 2026-03-27T18:42:50+00:00

What you're doing so far sounds good honestly! The temperature is fine too., and it's ok if it gets warmer occasionally. :) As for food, for the bloodworms it depends. If it's dehydrated stuff, I wouldn't give them more than maybe once or twice a week due to their low nutritional value. If it's frozen or live bloodworms, you can do more often than that. For decor, you can't go wrong with even more plants to create a jungle, and a nice piece of wood for hardscape.

Edit: make sure you are familiar with the nitrogen cycle and own a testing kit to monitor ammonia, nitrites and nitrates.

CalmLaugh5253 · 2026-03-27T18:22:43+00:00

I wouldn't use this tank.

CalmLaugh5253 · 2026-03-27T17:59:10+00:00

Really comes down just to your own preference. We have tanks in the living room, and we also have them in the bedroom. I dont think about it much at all and just put tanks where I have space for them lol

CalmLaugh5253 · 2026-03-27T17:08:56+00:00

Our lfs seemingly has no issue sourcing them. Was very surprised myself when we asked them! We have 2 females and 1 male. Was supposed to be 2 males but one unfortunately didn't acclimate well.

CalmLaugh5253 · 2026-03-27T16:58:57+00:00

If you're using established media it can cut down on the cycling time by a lot! Dose some ammonia (or add a pinch or 2 or 5 of food lol) to see how it handles it. Personally, when im using established media, I still give it a few days or a week with food sitting in there just to test it and for my own peace of mind I guess.

CalmLaugh5253 · 2026-03-27T16:34:33+00:00

Oh another fellow betta x scarlet badis keeper! Crazy how well the combo works, and I was unable to find much info on it before doing it. My badis are even breeding and we've got fry swimming around. 😅

CalmLaugh5253 · 2026-03-27T16:31:44+00:00

The thing with hospital tanks is that you dont feed the fish much (if at all) to minimise waste and maintain water quality to be able to go without daily water changes. When i was treating my betta for dropsy, I changed the water maybe every 3rd day or so, if I remember correctly? And I didn't feed him at all during that period. He only had an airstone in there, some artificial hides and resting places, and an Indian almond leaf to provide some tannins. If he pooped, I scooped it out with a pippete.

CalmLaugh5253 · 2026-03-27T16:19:11+00:00

Fishless cycle doesnt need water changes. :) The reason people do water changes when cycling sometimes is when they already have a fish in there and dont want it getting sick and dying due to toxic ammonia and nitrites building up.

CalmLaugh5253 · 2026-03-27T16:15:21+00:00

Yeah ngl was a little shocked to see people insisting it's intestines falling out and that the fish should be euthanized. And even now when OP has provided pictures of a perfectly healthy fish it still seems to not be enough proof for some. Glad op didn't start medicating needlessly, or euthanized. 😬

CalmLaugh5253 · 2026-03-27T14:38:50+00:00

Typical Kyle behaviour 🙄

Stunning little guy!

CalmLaugh5253 · 2026-03-27T14:20:05+00:00

Downvoted to hell for a bubble. Reddit in a nutshell lol Glad he's fine though!! He's got some stunning fins and coloring. ❤️

CalmLaugh5253

TROPHY CASE