#ammonia spike from shifting substrate a bit during a water change? no idea

[chipped-chimera]

Agonising over when to get another Betta for this tank ... I know in my head I should do it sooner than later because the longer I leave it the less choice I have when it comes to the current stock my store has but ...

I'm still ripped up over Fish Karlach's death. I had her for such a short time and I still miss her, and I'm not sure my tank is in the clear. Another Corydora, a more mature one too, passed away but I noticed this one developing a problem around the same time the issue with the Betta started, and after a chat with my shop bought stronger medicine since what I was using probably wasn't cutting it - but I think in the end that was just too much for her. She was on the way out and I probably could have saved her if I went for help sooner but couldn't really do much while waiting to be clear of COVID (absolutely shit timing btw).

I was looking at the females at the shop on that day and just ... I didn't want them. I wanted her back. I know it's just my extremely bad luck, I did just about everything right with the knowledge I had available at the time and literally dealing with COVID, but it just hurts when like, I know there are betta fish out there living in unheated, unfiltered shitty, tiny tanks with plastic plants still live whereas mine, in a carefully managed heavily planted tank had to die. It's not fair.

What also sucks is with this shipment at the store, all the females are just marbles- maybe even from the same spawn and I'm straight up allergic to that gene because I know of its high risk for tumors. I generally don't want a marble. At all. But unfortunately all the other non-marble, specific-type fish are all Males, which I think would be more likely to have a behavioural issue in a community tank considering all the females are still stocked together so they're used to other fish already. I don't really have much in the way of other options unless I take a near 2hr drive way north of my city but even then fish stocking in Western Australia just plain sucks.

Maybe I'll wait a week. Idk. But pretty sure the methalyne blue that went in the tank will have killed off any remaining bacteria (what was theorised to be the cause) kicking around in there. I definitely know there are no parasites, since that treatment ran for like 2 weeks. Not really wanting to do a full course of methalyne blue though since I could tell some of my plants weren't liking it, and the one fish I was treating for died quickly anyway. Still a decent amount in there, just less. Probably need two more water changes to clear it.

I need to move on but goddamn I don't think I could deal with another sick fish.