AHHH!!! WHAT HAPPENED?!?!
So I was sitting in bed, folding laundry, and Illy was swimming along in his tank on my bedside table.
It was getting late, so the spawn came in to get ready for bed. I paused the laundry, we fed Illy and the rest of the fish, and then I read her a bedtime story. I hugged her goodnight and went back to my room to finish laundry.
I sat down on the bed, glanced over to Illy, and promptly had a mini heart attack.
Why did I have a mini heart attack? Well, I'll show you.
You know what Illy looks like, right? You've seen his picture.
Here he is. This is what he looked like when we fed him.
And this is what he looked like when I came back, literally ten minutes later. See if you can spot the difference.
Didja catch that?
I mean, it's subtle. You might've missed it.
Literally ten minutes. I was gone for literally ten minutes. I have no idea how he managed that in ten minutes.
But now I've figured out why. The fantastic bacteria bloom and ammonia spike this morning answered that.
So here's what happened. A couple days ago, the spawn accidentally overfed him because I forgot to tell her that I'd already fed him. This caused constipation, resulting in stringy white poop. I'd never seen the stringy white poop before, so when I cleaned his tank, I wasn't looking for it and therefore didn't get it all.
The added poop in a small aquarium threw off the cycle, causing the ammonia to spike to 1 ppm. This stressed Illy out and pissed him off, so he shredded his anal fin (fin shredding or biting is a relatively common practice among stressed bettas). The ammonia spike also caused the bacteria bloom this morning.
Yay for bacteria and open wounds...
So I'm doing 50% water changes now, along with salt and melafix to help speed the healing. Hopefully it'll heal up quickly, without fin rot setting in. And there's nothing to do but wait for the bacteria bloom to go away.
It was getting late, so the spawn came in to get ready for bed. I paused the laundry, we fed Illy and the rest of the fish, and then I read her a bedtime story. I hugged her goodnight and went back to my room to finish laundry.
I sat down on the bed, glanced over to Illy, and promptly had a mini heart attack.
Why did I have a mini heart attack? Well, I'll show you.
You know what Illy looks like, right? You've seen his picture.
And this is what he looked like when I came back, literally ten minutes later. See if you can spot the difference.
Didja catch that?
I mean, it's subtle. You might've missed it.
Literally ten minutes. I was gone for literally ten minutes. I have no idea how he managed that in ten minutes.
But now I've figured out why. The fantastic bacteria bloom and ammonia spike this morning answered that.
So here's what happened. A couple days ago, the spawn accidentally overfed him because I forgot to tell her that I'd already fed him. This caused constipation, resulting in stringy white poop. I'd never seen the stringy white poop before, so when I cleaned his tank, I wasn't looking for it and therefore didn't get it all.
The added poop in a small aquarium threw off the cycle, causing the ammonia to spike to 1 ppm. This stressed Illy out and pissed him off, so he shredded his anal fin (fin shredding or biting is a relatively common practice among stressed bettas). The ammonia spike also caused the bacteria bloom this morning.
Yay for bacteria and open wounds...
So I'm doing 50% water changes now, along with salt and melafix to help speed the healing. Hopefully it'll heal up quickly, without fin rot setting in. And there's nothing to do but wait for the bacteria bloom to go away.
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