10 Reasons Why your Bettas keep dying?
- Oct 24, 2018
- Gokhan MERMERTAS
- 3113 0 0
Betta or Siamese Fighting Fish is a labyrinth fish species that is very common in the aquarium hobby. The ability to gulp air outside of the water allows them to live in unaerated tanks. Unfortunately, because of this ability, these magnificent fish is put in small containers and sold to people as undemanding beginner's fish. For this reason, they keep dying and dying in hands of people who buy this beautiful creature.
Now let's see the possible reasons and what we are doing wrong.
A betta fish can die because of several reasons such as;
1. Overfeeding; generally causes constipation like symptoms and fish will have a huge belly. This may affect the swim bladder so he is unable to swim properly and die. I think if we compare overfeeding to not feeding, overfeeding causes more death.
2. Lack of proper diet; bettas are carnivorous fish and they need high quality of protein sources. It is better to provide them live or frozen food.
3. Improper water conditions; even though bettas can survive in a small quantity of water, putting too much food will increase the nitrate in the water and the fish will die.
4. Coldwater; another misconception is betta can survive in room temperature, it is not completely wrong, they can somehow survive but if you can call it living. You should have at least 25 degrees Celcius to see the beauty of this fish. Fish will stay steady if the water is cold for him.
5. Other diseases; cold, fluctuating temperature, dirty water can cause several diseases such as fungi and white spot thus it causes the expecting thing.
6. Improper tank mates; though its common name Siamese Fighting Fish, they generally fight to each other which causes death one them and they generally cannot compete with other fish. Since they are slow swimmers and cannot dive too long they need to breathe air from the surface-, they are just nipped, chased continuously so on...
7. Jumping out of the water, Betta fish tend to jump out of the water to catch something so that will apparently cause death. You should put a lit over his tank.
8. Stress; disturbing the fish by humans, other fish or fluctuating water parameters may cause stress and the fish will try to hide anywhere he could find and the end will come.
9. Improper tank installation; if the tank was decorated with spiny hard objects and small caves betta may be stuck to them and may die. If the water motion is too much in the tank, the betta will not compete with that as well.
10. Old age; every living thing has a lifespan, and that day will eventually come.
IMO the biggest cruelty exposed to this beautiful and noble fish is putting them into the small cups. They deserve properly maintained the tank and good diet if you cannot provide it simply just do not buy it.
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