The Marble Betta Project @marblebetta-project-blog - Tumblr Blog

Peanut Betta Jelly before and after being put into his heated, filtered 10 gallon tank! he was put in his tank on the 16th and the pictures were taken the 22nd and the 25th! I’d say being a kaleidoscope fish means he’s happy.

I will put more updates on his color changes!

#Betta #betta fish #marble betta

oemmeo

Rant time. The longer I keep bettas, the angrier I get when I see things like this.

These are not homes.

Bettas are not decorations, they are living animals. At the very, very least they should have a gallon of water, and even that isn’t really suitable unless you have minimal decor to give them maximum swimming room.

I don’t really understand why people buy small glasses like this, because it’s not like it’s any more difficult to care for if you put it in a larger bowl. You can easily make larger containers just as visually beautiful, if not more so!

"But I’ve kept my betta in this vase for a long time now and he’s survived."

Yes, but what if I stuck you in a closet for years and brought you food and water everyday? You’d survive. Not comfortably or happily, but you’d survive. You wouldn’t keep your dog pent up in a kennel his whole life would you? No, that’s something that we call animal police on.

That’s exactly how it is for these fish. They can “survive” in these conditions but it’s a very cruel and sad form of life. Nitrates and ammonia build up in the water from their own waste, which can make it hard for them to breath and can even poison them if not changed constantly.

"But my fish doesn’t even do anything, he lays around on the top/bottom all day."

That’s called depression. Any adequate betta owner can tell you that most of these fish are actually quite active if they actually have the swimming room to be so. In a small glass like one of these, what else is there to do but sit around and do nothing? There isn’t space to do anything else. And his poor fins! Wouldn’t you like to see how beautiful they truly are? Too bad he has no room to spread them out in that little cup of his, he can only keep them cramped together.

I can guarantee that there is a remarkable difference when you transfer one of these creatures from a small glass to an actual bowl (Ideally 2.5 gal and up). Make sure the water is either tap water if you have a well, or treated tap water if you live off a town water system. It should also be between 70-80 degrees (all fish’s preferences will vary); if your house is already pretty toasty, that’s fine, but if not they have tiny little betta heaters you can purchase for very little cost. Put in some decorations or toys, and feed him more than just pellets. Dried brine shrimp can easily be found in the fish food section. Now give him a week or so, and watch his personality change. Given adequate living space/temp, good food, and even some interaction from you, he will become much happier and healthier - and prettier!

"But those small containers are just so lovely."

Trust me, I know, I love interior design. As a suggestion, I’d say you could get one of these and put him in it for a night if you were having a dinner party and used it as a center piece. But only a night! In the morning he should go back to his real home. And what’s so hard about having a decorative large environment anyway? There are a million different colors of plants, statues, and gravel for you to choose from! Why not pick some out that have a theme or compliment his colors? It really wouldn’t be any more trouble for you to clean every week or two, it only takes about ten minutes. Put him in a holding cup, take out his decor and rinse them off with your hands (no soap!) and then shift his stones around in the water to loosen the waste so you can just strain it out. Fill it back up, put decor back, and put him in (remember, you may need to give the water a bit of time to adjust to room temperature, don’t dump him back in right away or the temperature change will send him into shock). Those things are all really simple to attend to, no more effort than keeping him in a tiny little bowl. Except now, both you and him will benefit from it.

These fish can be extremely personable if you let them. Stop betta abuse.

They are not decorations, they are living creatures.

cannibal-felix-deactivated20160

reblogging this to my main blog cause bettas are one of the few fish you can actually interact with and (at least in my opinion) have some of the biggest personality differences between fish. I love my two boys to death and would do anything for them, and some people would throw their fish in a cup and call it a home.

#betta fish #pet health #humans housing #fish

RO water may not be best for betta fish

My family has a reverse osmosis water filter in the house. If you've never seen one before, they attack to the water like from the sink and can filter out almost all impurities so you end up with pure H20. I'd been using this water for all my fish, thinking it was safer than the tap water which is high in fluoride and other elements and chemicals. However, I've noticed that when I leave an open glass of RO water out at night and then drink it, it tastes disgusting. It must pull junk out of the air, because it had an almost dusty taste to it! In light of this (and in the absence of having the equipment to test the water), I don't think I'll be using it for my fish any more, especially considering that our air is extremely polluted here.

#betta fish #fish care #environment #fish

I checked on here and she's still fully in the water! I had one, though, who would stick her head out and sit like that for a few minutes ... Scared the crap out of me!! I think they like it because it is easier to breathe? The plants look comfy to sleep on anyway xD

#glorytoarstotzka #betta fish

Does anyone else have a fish who does this? I keep freaking out when I see her because she sleeps like she's dead .... Nope, just napping on a leaf so she can stick her head out and breathe and blow a bubble nest!

#betta #fish #betta splendins #marble betta #betta fish

Ok so a few weeks ago I got this betta and he was really dark blue and even when I shone a light on him I couldn't see through his tail. Later I started noticing his bottom fin was getting more reddish, I don't have any pictures but I'm pretty sure he was completely blue when I first got him. I also noticed that there were transparent stripes and the colours were sort of fading. I was just wondering could he possibly be a marble? I'll post pictures if you need.

The fading definitely sounds like a marble to me and I've had a couple that started showing color changes on their fins first.

Just to be sure (it's a concern since you mention the red color), the fins aren't ragged looking at all, right? If they are, then he could have fin rot and the water needs to be treated. If not, then he likely is a marble. I had a black betta whose bottom fins changed after I'd had him a month. They turned lighter and then red. It freaked me out at first because I didn't think he could possibly be a marble (my previous fish had spotting or "bald-eagle" coloring and I didn't know then that even solid colored fish could have jumping genes)!

Even if you don't submit pictures (though it would be awesome if you could!), I do suggest you take a few every week just to keep track of the changes. There were some subtle ones that happened to my fish over the course of his life and I never would have noticed if not for the pictures I'd taken!

ava-bird

My betta fish, Ziggy Stardust.

He’s changed color a bit since I got him, and soon he’ll have him home upgraded to a bigger tank~

#betta splendins #betta fish #betta #fish

Adorable new baby - she doesn't have a name yet! She's so tiny and she's turned all sorts of colors since yesterday.

#betta #betta spendins #female betta #marble betta #anabantid #fish #betta fish

Seeking Mods

Must be fish lovers, preferrably betta fish owners.

Message me if you're interested!

#betta #fish #mods #Aquaria

what-a-daringdream-blog

Cleaning the fish bowls is always the best way to get good pictures of my boys! Faraday is looking fine! Also, from the right angle, you can tell he’s turning purple now! I hope the progresses to him being an entirely different color again.

marblebetta-project-blog

RIP to my first marble betta and the guy who inspired me to start this blog.

Always a beauty through every iteration.

[Faraday: 2012 - 2013]

#betta #marble betta #Betta Splendins #fish #Aquaria

milanne

Latest update on my marble betta! He started off a tiny white little guy and now look at him!

#marble betta #betta #fish #aquaria #Betta Splendins

reysies

Yes, all of these photos are of the same fish.

This here? This was my first betta fish. I got him my final semester of college, and I will admit he was an impulse buy because oooh look at the pretty white betta. Sadly I don’t have any really early pictures of him, back when he only had a single tiny black speck on his tail.

Me, being a complete newbie to bettas, had no idea that what marbling was. So around the time I noticed that black speck turning into black streaks, I started panicking. Thankfully it didn’t take too long before someone told me to chill, and after that I made sure to snap a picture every few months to document his changes.

Figures that I’d get a fish because he was pretty and white and he ended up being practically all black by the time he was done.

marblebetta-project-blog

The blue on this back fins is gorgeous!

A lot of the white ones do end up totally different colors as they age; they're tricky like that.

#betta #marble betta #fish #Aquaria #Betta Splendins

Betta Health - A PSA and a Call for Help

I've been away on an internship for the past 2 months, so I haven't been able to post much. I feel this is important, though, so I'd like to offer up my story and see if it matches anyone else's experience.

The week before I left on my trip in June, none of my bettas were looking very good (none of the 8, who all lived separately and in different areas of the house - Phoenix, Orion, Ponyo, Tesla, Faraday, Magic, Pascal and Buddy). Before I left, I lost no less then 5 of my fish. All were different ages. When they first started looking poorly, I switched to more frequent water changes (reverse-osmosis water) with a tiny pinch of sea salt and betta water conditioner for the sickest looking fish (it aids in slime coating to prevent any parasites and I figured they needed all the help they could get). I threw out all the aquarium decor and everyone got plants only.

All of their symptoms were the same:

listlessness (floating in the corner or lying on the bottom)

hiding/acting scared of me even though many used to greet me when I came in the room

no appetite (nibbled at food but wouldn't eat more than that, if that)

loss of fin and scale luster

ragged fins (they seemed to be disintegrating; no blood or indication of fin rot, though I treated them as if they had it. No change.)

drooping fins (no flaring, no showing off)

wasting (none of them had the usual thick body of a healthy betta; they looked skinny)

Only Tesla is still with us; my mum did daily water changes with nothing else in the water. Tesla had been flashing (itching on the plants) so she removed those and bought new ones a few weeks later. His fins are still not what they once were (short, ragged ... they look like they've melted at the ends) but he's back to his old self.

Before all this started, I noticed scum forming on the top of the bowls. I was cleaning them as frequently as always and nothing else changed. But some of the bowls ended up with a thick coating of what looked like oil on top of the water. Others had a thick, whitish film. There was no change in food, frequency of cleanings, plants, any kind of care change during this time.

I know this post has gotten long but I feel I have to be specific because I need you to know that I've considered everything before coming to my conclusion. I do live in Texas and it is polluted to an extent most of you can't even imagine; the air burns, it smells like chemicals on a good day and like oil when it rains. The sky is almost always smoggy. Living there has adversely affected my and my family's health and I think it took a toll on my bettas. I need more information from more people but in the absence of any clear pathogen causing sickness, I have to conclude that pollution made my fish sick and ultimately killed them.

Here's where I need help from everyone here (I know the tumblr betta community is both large and helpful): Let me know if your fish presented any of the symptoms above, especially if you live somewhere known for it's environmental unfriendliness. Let me know what you did to help them and if it was successful. If we can start keeping track of symptoms and how to prevent death from environmental pollutants, let's do it.

#bettas #illness #fish help #fish #siamese fighting fish #beta splendins

Betta splendens need at least a 25 litre tank with a filter and a heater as they are tropical. I don't understand why people keep them in tiny bowls with no heater and no filter. There's a difference between surviving and thriving before you whip out the "they can live in tiny puddles in the wild" line. They don't LIVE in little puddle in the wild, that is a myth, they may find themselves there during a dry season but they live in vast expanses of rice paddies and other bodies of water!

The “tiny puddles" excuse is absolutely null and void since they live in shallow puddles with width in the extremes of the dry season and can jump from puddle to puddle (hence the reason so many bettas are jumpers).

I try to be flexible with what people choose to house their bettas in; I find that it’s most important that they can turn, swim back and forth and up and down with ease. Additionally, plants are important and I’ve come to the conclusion that plants should be chosen over decorations (I noticed the paint coming off mine and trashed them all and bought everyone plants instead!).

I don’t do heaters and filters and I do have justification for this:

Heaters: I’ve had two break on me (and they were not cheap filters either), one which kicked up to 95 and killed all my fish. I won’t be putting them in danger like that again and instead keep them in warm areas of the house. It’s Texas; warm is not hard to come by.

Filters: I had one fish that liked to get herself stuck in there and she ended up hurt several times. I took out the filter, cleaned the tank regularly and she lived to be 3. Other filters have greatly upset my bettas because they don’t like moving water. Anything but still can stress them out.

I’ve had bettas in an 8 gallon; the first one was my gorgeous half-moon who had been very healthy until I put him in there. I thought it was best for him, but he seemed stressed and died not long after (the other fish in the tank, all tropicals, were fine). Another that lived in there also only lived a few months before he passed away, with no visible illness.

Having experienced all this, I use good-sized bowls, with 3+ plants (depending on the size) in a warm, heavily trafficked area of the house (bettas love interacting with their people).

You pick up tricks and find what works for your fish as you move along in the “hobby" of betta-keeping (though it’s obviously a serious task to take on any pet). All you can do for hard and fast rules is ensure that you have the appropriate space to keep them happy (plants or natural rocks and wood to hide in and rest on; clean out once a week if there is no filter), place their bowl/tank in an appropriate space (not too hot or cold, no direct sunlight) and keep them visually stimulated (where there are people to engage with them).

#betta fish #Betta Splendins #betta #fish #siamese fighting fish #marble betta

jackharknessthebetta2-blog

Surprise! As some of you know, I have a marble gene, which means I’ll change colour throughout my life. Just when I lost my last bit of white and started to turn deep blue, I’ve started to change colour again — back to white for me. This is the most white I’ve had, so who knows where I’m headed next?

…Oh, and yesterday was tank-cleaning day. That’s why my eyes are gold and you can see stress stripes along my body if you look closely. I get very angsty when it’s time to clean my tank. :(

#marble betta #genes #betta fish #fish #betta splendins