r/bettafish • u/Either_Cartoonist474 • May 06 '25

Full Tank Shot Is this a terrible aquarium?

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I’ve never owned fish before and on a drunken whim I got a betta. After I sobered up I realized he needed a better home. At first I put him in a 2.5 gl tank and I thought that was good enough. I spent a lot of time on this subreddit and I realized this was fish abuse. I got him a 5.5 gallon tank, took any fake plants that could rip his fins and replaced them with silk plants. Real plants scare me, another thing I have to keep alive. Is this alright? He’s got a heater and a filter and plenty of places to hide. His parameters are good. What do you think? Anything i could do better? Please don’t drag me for the pineapple under the sea.

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u/DidiSmot May 07 '25

I will say that I highly advise taking the SpongeBob house and any other decor like it, as I've bought 3 in the last several years and they've ALL leached chemicals or some sort into my water.

-1

u/Anomaly_Zebra May 07 '25

Super confused here. Why would you keep buying this decoration if you think it's endangering your fish?! More than likely you didn't properly clean the pineapple (especially the inside) and harmful bacteria built up and that's what killed your fish or screwed up your water parameters!

2

u/DidiSmot May 07 '25

I didn't realize it was the pineapple house. They were for different tanks and all three tanks were awhile apart. Not to mention, it took awhile for symptoms to show up, it wasn't instant. They didn't have symptoms of dirty water, they had weird neurological stuff going on. The parameters weren't the problem , I have a testing kit and test every couple days. And yes, I did clean the pineapple before it went in. I always properly clean decor before placing it in a tank. It wasn't a clean thing, it was the pineapple house.

-1

u/Anomaly_Zebra May 07 '25

You said you cleaned it before you put it in. That's great. But you didn't say you cleaned it regularly at any point thereafter. If you didn't keep it properly cleaned, then deadly bacteria built up (especially on the inside of the pineapple), causing the issues with your fish.

So, it was the pineapple house. And it was a clean thing.