i love cory cats so much

main blog: gooddogbestfriend shrimp tank: 5g brackish tank with hawaiian red shrimp, malaysian trumpet snails, and a zebra nerite 29g: planted 29 gallon, main home of Stitch 10qt: the 10 gallon quarantine tank, currently treating three sterbai cories for maybe chilodonella? trtk: the training tank, a barely planted tank, for training Stitch to do silly tricks

[stygianterrorfish]

Does the red spot on his side look like an injury/illness or is it just his coloration coming through?

[stygianterrorfish]

He goes through the hoop! Next I'm teaching him to play basketball.

[stygianterrorfish]

Seti picked up targeting the target stick in under four repetitions. After about fifteen repetitions, free shaping, he's swimming through a hoop. This fish is smarter than some dogs I've trained!

[stygianterrorfish]

Seti would stop flaring as soon as I got the phone level with him to take a nice side-on level video so instead enjoy this skewed view of a tiny fish challenging me to a fight

[stygianterrorfish]

He’s already changing colors 💛

[stygianterrorfish]

He's Curious

[stygianterrorfish]

I keep having stress dreams where I somehow end up with multiple bettas in an undivided tank, or a too-large fish in a 10g tank, or two male bettas and a fish large enough to eat them in the same tank. Sttttoooppppp pleaassseeee brain

[despazito]

Why are people so obnoxious and entitled they need to find rare pretty fish instead of being satisfied with goldfish and bettas they are gorgeous and with the right tanks you can both make the whole space pretty and keep them living long healthy lives

i honestly have no clue

but i do feel there is some strange status symbol to owning rare fish compared to other exotics

[anabantoid]

Goldfish and bettas are largely unhealthy fish, anon, also you need a huge ass tank for goldfish and many are better suited in ponds. Goldfish are marketed as a simple or easy fish but they’re anything but.

Bettas are a genetic disaster, they have been bred into a number of colors, fin and scale types and there’s no record of what happens to them when one gene is flipped on and another is off. Dragon scale bettas are cancer factories, their thickened scales are just their cells not knowing when to shut off and they end up growing tumors which can kill them. Heavy finned bettas are unable to move. Bettas are hardwired to be fast moving ambush predators, and when you give them fins that make up 50% of their body mass you’re left with a fish who knows they are supposed to go fast but are unable to, so they are stressed, and stress leads the fish to have compromised health which leads to premature death.

Goldfish and bettas are terrible choices, instead of suggesting those as alternatives to rare and exotic fish, suggest tetras, rainbows, danios, rasboras, or live bearers like guppies, endlers, etc. A lot of the fish you see in chain stores are bred in fisheries because it’s cheaper for them vs getting wild caught fish, but even then not all wild caught fish are bad, as there are a number of programs that encourages sustainable catching. Local villages catch fish in a sustainable manner, sell them for the trade, and earn income they otherwise would not have. Cardinal tetras are caught this way, and the income the villagers earn from this prevents them from having to cut down and burn forest to create cropland in order to earn a living.

[stygianterrorfish]

Sustainable wild capture also gives the villages and local governments incentive to keep the waterways in good shape. If the water is bad quality and the fish populations decline, they lose money.

[stygianterrorfish]

he's a swooshy show off

[stygianterrorfish]

I cleaned the hood from the quarantine tank and turned it on any only one of the three lights work lmfao. No plants in this tank though and I like the dramatic mood it gives the tank so if/when this one goes I'll go back to the glass lid and figure out a little light.

[stygianterrorfish]

hiding

[stygianterrorfish]

OOPS

[betta-fish-friends]

Who is in there?? 0w0

[stygianterrorfish]

New friend named Seti! I've got a couple posts with pictures of him now. :D

[stygianterrorfish]

“was dis? was dat? was those?”

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His body already has a lovely turquoise sheen instead of the flat white he was earlier! I think he's settling in well.

[stygianterrorfish]

"was dis? was dat? was those?"

[stygianterrorfish]

Setup and freedom! Water is a bit murky from messing with the sand. Seti's exploring the whole tank, playing in the bubble stream, and being beautiful. Not seen in the pics is the floating tunnel he has so he can rest near the surface, since he's got more finnage than Stitch and Stitch loves resting in his tunnel. I figure Seti needs a surface nap spot too.

[stygianterrorfish]

acclimation pics! I think I'll name him Seti...

[stygianterrorfish]

OOPS