snail & betta

how about i grabbed a couple snails today while at the store, put one in my
bigger betta's tank, he wanted to attack it, i gave him a second to realise
it was not food, but he was dead set on killing it, the little sh*t, so the
snail was in there a matter of five minutes, he would not even let it come
out from its shell to move, i moved it to the females tank, they dont seem
to notice it but i guess now i will watch them in case. Is that normal for a
betta to act that way towards a snail, i guess they all have different ideas
of what is ok in their tanks..

update gourami, he is now laying on the bottom of the tank not swimming
around, i feel so bad wish there was something i could do for him but i
think the lack of oxygen when he was out, and the brush burn on his top fin
may due him in, i put a little extra salt in the tank, i usualy put a little
less in the tank normaly then it says to incase i need to use it for
something then i can use more.
nik

"Nikki" wrote in message
news
how about i grabbed a couple snails today while at the store, put one in
my bigger betta's tank, he wanted to attack it, i gave him a second to
realise it was not food, but he was dead set on killing it, the little
sh*t, so the snail was in there a matter of five minutes, he would not
even let it come out from its shell to move, i moved it to the females
tank, they dont seem to notice it but i guess now i will watch them in
case. Is that normal for a betta to act that way towards a snail, i guess
they all have different ideas of what is ok in their tanks..

I play it safe and only give my male bettas plants. There is a small snail
in one of their tanks that I move with the betta when doing the water
change - then replace the little snail. He ignores it. It must have been
on one of the water lettuce.

update gourami, he is now laying on the bottom of the tank not swimming
around, i feel so bad wish there was something i could do for him but i
think the lack of oxygen when he was out, and the brush burn on his top
fin may due him in, i put a little extra salt in the tank, i usualy put a
little less in the tank normaly then it says to incase i need to use it
for something then i can use more.
nik

You may lose this fish. I remember reading somewhere that if their gills
dry out they don't recover. I guess it's sort of like a human severely
damaging their lungs,.... the damage is permanent. I once had a mother
convict somehow jump out of their tank. She was pretty dry when I found
her, considering she's was a fish. She did recover and continue raising her
fry. The poor thing lay there gasping on the bottom at first, looking
around like she was in a daze. But she slowly came out of it. The male
stayed near her with their fry the whole time. I thought she was a
goner....

I hope your fish recovers. Where there's life, there's hope.
--
Koi-Lo.... the ReelMcKoi
Frugal ponding since 1995.
Aquariums since 1952.
My Pond & Aquarium Pages:
http://tinyurl.com/9do58
~~~ }((((o ~~~ }{{{{o ~~~ }(((((o

"Nikki" wrote in message
news

update gourami, he is now laying on the bottom of the tank not swimming
around, i feel so bad wish there was something i could do for him but i
think the lack of oxygen when he was out, and the brush burn on his top
fin may due him in, i put a little extra salt in the tank, i usualy put a
little less in the tank normaly then it says to incase i need to use it
for something then i can use more.
nik

Opinions please? Could this gourami have been helped any more if, when
returned to the tank, Nikki had pushed him back and forth through the
water to get good water through his gills? It works on TV.

-- Mister Gardener

"Mister Gardener" wrote in message
...

"Nikki" wrote in message
news

update gourami, he is now laying on the bottom of the tank not swimming
around, i feel so bad wish there was something i could do for him but i
think the lack of oxygen when he was out, and the brush burn on his top
fin may due him in, i put a little extra salt in the tank, i usualy put
a
little less in the tank normaly then it says to incase i need to use it
for something then i can use more.
nik

Opinions please? Could this gourami have been helped any more if, when
returned to the tank, Nikki had pushed him back and forth through the
water to get good water through his gills? It works on TV.

-- Mister Gardener

ha....ha ..I do that any time I think a fish is dying.
It don't just work on TV, I found that out when I started to keep guppies, I
had a beautiful male, black & yellow, and when you live in Pittsburgh, pa
and the Steelers are winning, you don't let nothing black & gold die.
Any way one day I noticed he was upside down, did not notice his gills
moving, I tried to turn him right side up but he kept going upside down, was
not moving dead for all intent purpose, I moved him back and forth though
the water and sure enough he came up and with in a few minutes he was fine,
he is still alive today...
NIk

I tried that with the gourami, and he did come to, and looked good till this
afternoon, he is still alive just sitting on the bottom of the tank leaning
on a rock, breathing heavy ..... i keep checking on him but he is not doing
anything but sitting there.

Nikki,

Have you ever noticed that the first thing snails put out are their
feelers? Bettas love nothing more than hunting live food, and a snail's
feelers look for all intents and purposes just like a wriggler
(mosquito larvae) or small worm, exactly the sort of thing that fills
his life with purpose (other than having violent sex and potentially
killing his partner).

If you haven't been feeding your betta much live food, it would be
itching to hunt something down, to the point where he would easily kill
snails by harassing them every time they attempted to emerge from their
shell. For this reason, it is advisable to use snails which "breathe"
underwater. ie, they don't need to come to the surface to pump in or
breathe air.

And of course, use the same trick you would when adding new fish to a
predatory tank. Just before releasing them, give the existing fish a
good hearty feed, so they don't think those expensive little morsels
are an exotic treat. With your betta, you might find that if he is
already preoccupied with chasing down a few wrigglers or some brine
shrimp (for example), by the time the snail has re-emerged he has no
interest in it and will generally leave it be. Remember though, that
fish really do only live for food and sex, so if it can't f### it, it
will try and eat it.


Gouramis are another labyrinth-gill breather, like the fighter fish,
and can survive a fairly long time out of water. The biggest worry
would be lack of oxygen to the brain. Since fish are cold-blooded
creatures, they can survive much longer out of water in colder
temperatures than in warm. The most important thing with
labyrigth-gillers is that they remain at least slightly moist (since
higher temperatures also dry them out faster, it follows that the lower
the temp. the longer it will live out of water).

The salt may help fight against any secondary infections or fungals,
but as with any major change, you have to consider the stress-factor
and ensure you don't overdo anything, especially when the fish is
already highly stressed. Keeping low light and slightly raising the
temperature may help. In severe cases, as MG suggests, you can move the
fish back and forwards to help with the water-flow through the gills.
While this may work in the short term, permanent damage may already
have been done and you have to weigh up whether or not its worth adding
a non-diseased dead fish to your next home-made blend of fish-food.
I've never been able to do it myself, but I'm sure there's the odd
(very odd!) stooge out there with next to no moral scruples who do it
all the time.

The worst offenders I've ever had for jumping out and usually killing
themselves were newly arrived Koi. Whilst many where way-too-far gone
by the morning, occasionally some very dried-up looking specimens would
come good with a bit of back-and-forthing and holding in front of a
power filter for a little while. Dried-up or "burnt" fins soon
recovered... and I soon learnt to keep better lids on my tanks
especially after a new shipment.

"Nikki" wrote in message
...

I tried that with the gourami, and he did come to, and looked good till
this afternoon, he is still alive just sitting on the bottom of the tank
leaning on a rock, breathing heavy .....
================
Could be damage to his delicate gills. I'm going to guess that's his
problem. When something can't get enough oxygen it tends not to move much.
Does he go to the top for air?
--
Koi-Lo.... the ReelMcKoi
Frugal ponding since 1995.
Aquariums since 1952.
My Pond & Aquarium Pages:
http://tinyurl.com/9do58
~~~ }((((o ~~~ }{{{{o ~~~ }(((((o

No just sits at the bottom held up by a rock, still breathing.
Nik



"Koi-Lo" wrote in message
...

"Nikki" wrote in message
...

I tried that with the gourami, and he did come to, and looked good till
this afternoon, he is still alive just sitting on the bottom of the tank
leaning on a rock, breathing heavy .....
================
Could be damage to his delicate gills. I'm going to guess that's his
problem. When something can't get enough oxygen it tends not to move
much. Does he go to the top for air?
--
Koi-Lo.... the ReelMcKoi
Frugal ponding since 1995.
Aquariums since 1952.
My Pond & Aquarium Pages:
http://tinyurl.com/9do58
~~~ }((((o ~~~ }{{{{o ~~~ }(((((o

wow does that pushing back and forward thing work? I got told that if
you want to kill a sick fish, you could just grab it's tail and pull
the fish backward through the water and it will drown them. Don't know
if it's true and never tried it...

Yeah I had a snail in a tank years ago with some assorted tropicals -
chances are with those antennae, they are going to get nipped from time
to time, but I'd say take it out away from the betta. Having said
that, maybe he'll get bored of it...

Hi Nikki - I have 2 blue dwarf gouramis an one of them regularly adopts the
"I am about to die posture" - it's a form of sulking 'cos something happened
that they didn't like!! - in the case of mine, because he doesn't like some
of his neighbours. Bear in mind that Gouramis can breathe surface air and I
think you will find that he is just recovering froma little impact damage
from his leap of faith

"Beano" wrote in message
oups.com...
wow does that pushing back and forward thing work? I got told that if
you want to kill a sick fish, you could just grab it's tail and pull
the fish backward through the water and it will drown them. Don't know
if it's true and never tried it...

Yeah I had a snail in a tank years ago with some assorted tropicals -
chances are with those antennae, they are going to get nipped from time
to time, but I'd say take it out away from the betta. Having said
that, maybe he'll get bored of it...


I guess if you would do it fast or hard I don't know if it would drown, but
doing it as if they are swimming, and again if they are no longer swimming
for them self, I guess doing it hard could do something maybe hurt them.
I took the snail out and my betta got mad, he does that a lot, he decided to
lay on the bottom of the tank as if he was dead, so when I was feeding them
all I skipped him since he wanted to act dead, then all a sudden he came up
wanting his food, so I fed him, when he gets mad he does that, (im mad at
you and wish I was dead, you know like a little kid, he got my attention at
first by doing that.
Nik