#the new orange one just KEEPS GETTING FINROT

[magnoliasandbeardedtooth]

today in, are my fish going to die

[hundred-and-one-bettas]

Hey guys!

So. It’s been a while. I’m not /entirely/ sure where I left this blog but I’ll just make a summary from where I think I did. At the start of last summer my boyfriend broke up with me, leading to me being extremely depressed and lose any energy to do more than feed and simple water changes (I’m not proud to say this, but if that. Sometimes I’d go longer than I should’ve.). I also had an internship where I was working full time, it lasted all except one week of my summer. So basically, I didn’t have the energy nor time to keep up with my tanks or this blog.

I tried setting up the 55g, threw at least $400 I into it, I think I posted photos on here Well, some sort of contaminant got into the tank resulting in me losing ALL my plants and fish except for three glowlight tetras who are hanging out in a 10g til I can upgrade to a 20g long and get them some more friends. Watching all my fish die, as well as all my money melt and be buried under our orange tree, didn’t help with the depression at all lol. I was also too sad and embarrassed to post what happened, plus I was still worried it was somehow my fault and that I was a terrible fishkeeper or something. :(

Freckles died of some mysterious illness, it started out with finrot that wouldn’t go away despite various treatments and pristine water, he lost most of his fins and then stopped eating (he never ate the best, but he still ate). He passed away about two or three weeks later. I’m still not positive what got him, I ran multiple various treatments to try and help him but it didn’t do anything.

Buttons jumped out of his tank. It was really sad, he was such a good fish. He’d swim up to the glass and wiggle whenever he saw someone come into my room. He also really liked my mom, and she in turn loved him, so it was a very difficult loss for us.

Holly, my favorite girl…well. I was doing a water change one day and she got sucked up by the siphon. I immediately pulled the siphon up and I THOUGHT it had stopped siphoning, but it didn’t. I got her out finally and part of her stomach (or some internal organ) was hanging out, but she was still completely alive. I think the worst part was she was trying to act like her normal wiggly self despite not being able to swim correctly and having internal organs hanging out…I called Addie (the spice bettas) in tears and she helped me euthanize her (although it wasn’t very peaceful, she freaked out and it was awful :() and calm me down.

Braveheart died of old age. I’m not really that upset about it cause he lived a good life, ya know? He was such a good fish though. Even though he had this weird morbid thing about munching on fruit flies til they couldn’t move right and then spitting them out…

The new additions to the family would be Puddles, Jewel (I don’t think I announced her), and Penny I got Puddles the day after the incident with Holly happened, I was already still depressed at the time and I couldn’t handle seeing the empty tank. He’s a koi plakat. Jewel is a walmart betta, I went back there one day and saw so many terrible suffering bettas, it broke my heart. I wanted to take them all, but I couldn’t…I felt a connection with her though so I got her. Penny is also a Walmart betta. A different Walmart had one singular betta left, who’d been there for WEEKS, so we assumed they’d stopped selling bettas, hurray! But she looked so awful that I took her home because I didn’t want her to die a lonely death in Walmart. I didn’t think she’d make it through the night, or even home, but she’s still here doing great! She’s literally always stress striped though? I’m wondering if maybe it’s just her color, idk.

So now! I’ve graduated high school and finally have the time and energy to put into the tanks like they deserve! Unfortunately given the lack of maintenance they received for like. The past year. Most of my plants are dead! The only survivors are dwarf rotala, bacopa, a few swords, and some vals. Plus that mystery plant I never quite identified. Egeria perhaps…? I have very little duckweed left (???), and the tetras ate the last of my frogbit. Apparently the roots are delicious.

If any of you guys are selling assorted plants, please let me know! I really miss my frogbit. The tanks honestly look so empty right now.

tl;dr Got depressed, lost fish, 55g crashed and burned, got some new fish, all my plants are dead and please hmu if you’re selling assorted plants.