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Dreama, are those strawberry and blueberry tetras? Those are also dyed, but usually dyed very well so you can't tell unless you know that tetras aren't naturally those colors. There are VERY few freshwater fish that are bright pink or blue or green or whatever, so always be suspicious and do your research.

Well, "good" news on Balthazar. He's back down to the size he was when he stopped growing for a while. Just "really big" instead of "huge." Maybe the extra hugeness was constipation... I've been feeding him every other day since I posted, maybe that helped. Or maybe he ate some baby snails that I recently moved into that tank and the added fiber from their shells helped him. I'm just happy he looks better. However, his fins have gotten ripped up because he's been sitting around more, and I think he sat right under the filter a few times. I'll probably add some melafix, but is that stuff ok to use with snails?

I feed the hikari betta bio-gold most of the time, usually about 6 pellets a day (either 3 pellets twice a day, or all 6 at once). This is less than I used to feed (10-12 a day), I guess I could have lowered it around the same time this stuff started, don't know. For treats, I feed freeze-dried bloodworms and brine shrimp and frozen mosquito larvae. Thanks for the tips... I'll look through for some more ideas. Of course I thought this was constipation at first, but if he's been looking the same for a month, and I have seen SOME poop... I just don't know what to think.

And the last one

Here's another picture

Hi guys... I haven't been around for a while, but I'm hoping you can help me with a problem. I've got a betta named Balthazar who has been living in a 5 gallon tank for a while now. He's got a mini whisper filter, lots of life plants (some cryps and java fern). It used to be divided with another male betta on the other side, named Bruce, but he passed away suddenly. Balthazar showed no signs of catching what Bruce had. About a month ago, Balthazar started getting really bloated. But he stopped getting any bigger for a while, stayed the same (big) size, and he was still eating and swimming normally, so I didn't worry. But just during this past week or so, he's gotten HUGE. I'm attaching pictures below, they're not great, but I think you can tell how big his chest/stomach area is. The scales aren't sticking out at all, and there are NO other signs of illness. He's eating fine, he still comes to see me when I come near the tank. He's been flaring once in a while, but no bubble nests since the other fish died. I've had this little guy less than a year, but I have no idea how old he was when I bought him. Here are some early pics of him: http://www.rit.edu/~ams8150/pics/betta.html I've lowered the water level so that the water coming from the filter will disrupt the surface more, since it was getting a little bit of a film on the surface recently. I had a bout of blue-green algae (the stuff that grows in sheets) but now I've just got a lot of the plain old green algae. I hadn't been testing the water because the levels were always so consistent. But I checked them just now, and ammonia and nitrite are 0 of course, and nitrate also shows up as 0 (less than 5 anyway), which makes sense with all those plants and algae. I do a water change about once a week, of around 50%. The pH has been steady at around 8.2, which I know is high for a betta, but he always seemed fine with it. I keep the water around 80 degrees F. When he first started getting bloated, I tried melafix, and then later I tried salt (3 tablespoons for the 5 gallons). Neither of those seemed to help at all. Thanks in advance for any help!

I was afraid this was going to be another post where someone says "if you don't have bubbles, you don't have oxygen!" Some people feel that without an air stone, you don't have enough oxygen in your tank, regardless of what else you have (filters, powerheads, etc). Others assume that because THEY live on the equator, EVERYONE gets temperatures over 90 F regularly in the summer and ends up with warm tanks. I was worried about that, too. Turns out I had no reason to worry, it was a great article! I didn't read your article about water changes, but I think I'll go do that now.

That's a goldfish we're talking about? I thought Tish was still the oldest. He died at 43 (I looked it up to be sure of the age).

I'm pretty sure the goldfish that currently holds the record only lived to 42 or 43. And that's just a common, fancies have shorter lives. noahnjm is right, they must be thinking of koi (or trying to bend the facts to make people be more consciencious).

I always search google for "aquarium volume calculator" and use that first link.

I agree with jdude. A bigger tank will be less maintainance, as long as you don't get any more fish. If you got a bigger tank, like 30 gallons, and just kept one 8" fish in it, you could probably do water changes every two weeks (instead of every week, like most people do). That's the tradeoff -- a smaller tank means more work, but takes up less of your space, while a bigger tank is less work.

Tiny is the orange one, right? Because Tiny looks like even more of a ryukin than Spot! I think they're both at least part ryukin, but they might be some kind of mixed breed.

If they don't eat the flake food, you could try liquid food made especially for fry. You can find it at pretty much any lfs. Many baby fish also like live brine shrimp, if you feel like hatching some of those. I've heard that a lot of people feed cooked and crushed egg yolk to babies, but they say it's pretty messy, so I never tried it.

They definitely don't need salt. It might help reduce stress, but I'm not sure if babies are more sensitive to salt than adults. As adults, they can handle as much salt as goldfish. They're freshwater fish, so any dechlorinated water with a stable pH and temperature is fine! It's really not much different than keeping goldfish, except for the fact that these are babies.

They do BEST in bigger groups.. I found that 4 wasn't enough for mine to stop fighting, fins were getting damaged, so I ended up with 8 of them, and they're much more peaceful. Just playful chasing. I'm sure you'll have enough left to have a big happy group. They really are great fish! Mine will eat out of my hand. They're definitely not shy. Don't be disappointed if a lot of them don't survive. I got my first goldfish from a biology lab, so I know how crazy lab fish can be at first! My guy was insane... I remember putting him in a small bucket while I got his tank set up, and every time he heard/felt footsteps, he would start crashing into the sides of the bucket. I'm sure your fish are similarly stressed. Also, as for the name, they're almost always called "zebra danios" in the fishkeeping hobby, but any bio textbook will call them "zebrafish."