and let him live the rest of his life in ana-mit– ana– ana-nit-mitty– haha, how do you say this?
you know me i love betta fish the whole reason why i got into the fish keeping
hobby was because my friend gave my toddler son a betta fish and i've had one ever since
but what do you do if your betta hates you?
hi my name is Irene with Girl Talks Fish and this is Sonic, my mustard gas betta fish that
i originally got for my 20 gallon community tank until he started trying to attack all of
his tank mates and ended up ripping his fins which earned him this 5 gallon bachelor pad
then i proceeded to accidentally poison the whole tank so if you want to see the whole saga you can
start with episode 1 over here now the last time i made a dedicated video about him was actually six
months ago and you know why because he hates being on camera i am totally serious like if i come up
to the tank he will swim up to the front do a little friendly gill flare try to beg for food
but if i approach with a camera or a smartphone and try to take his picture heaven forbid
try to film him he immediately disappears like houdini now Sonic was supposed to be
the very visible mascot of this channel i actually had a profile picture made that is of him but he
was just unhappy being the pet of a youtuber so my choices were either take him out of the limelight
let him live out the rest of his life in anonymity or re-home him of course i never
seriously considered option number two because what am i gonna do give him away to some
random stranger on craigslist no but then enter in my childhood best friend
Zelda so back when i started my YouTube channel she dutifully out of loyalty subscribed to my
channel even though she didn't have any fish but i didn't realize that three years later
she was still actually watching my YouTube channel and now wanted her own betta fish hmm
so she knew about my troubles with sonic and actually kindly offered to take him home now i
really debated whether or not this was the right decision because you know Sonic is a wet pet he
is not some random neon tetra that doesn't have a name but in the end i felt like that he would be
happier with her and her family and they too would get more enjoyment out of him
the only trouble was i live in Colorado and she's all the way in the Northeast so i have seen
several YouTube videos of fish tubers traveling on airplanes with live fish in their carry-on baggage
i went to the TSA website it says yes live fish are okay and carry on but then there's like a
little bit of fine print on the bottom that says oh yeah by the way the TSA officer gets the final
say they can do whatever they want so on the day of the flight i had totally like butterflies knots
in my stomach i was just really nervous and plus i was running late because i had to catch sonic
at 6:30 a.m in the morning double bag him in two really strong fish bags tied him with rubber bands
tape them for extra measure and then i put him on the top of my backpack so he wouldn't get smushed
by everything anything and then that way it'd be really easy to remove him when i got to security
and thankfully the TSA officer that i got in security was absolutely thrilled to see a little
fish traveling down the conveyor belt um through the x-ray machine so when i finally made it
through security i was able to breathe a huge sigh of relief and my heart rate could finally start
going back down to normal once i made it all the way to the gate i texted Zelda and i said we are
good to go uh she had already purchased like half of the supplies i sent her a shopping list which i
will link down in the description for you as well but i said okay take your five gallon tank which
she had already done a leak test on and we're going to add the gravel put the decorations in
add the heater and the dechlorinated water and that way by the time Sonic gets there he will
have a nice warm and toasty you know home waiting for him when i landed and turned off airplane mode
on my phone i saw two text messages from her and the first one said oh no the water is completely
cloudy even though i rinsed the gravel like 20 times and then the second one said the heater
doesn't fit it's too tall for the aquarium and so i was like it's okay i believe that once we
i installed a filter for you the cloudiness will just naturally go away and then the heater you
can actually lay down horizontally i would put it maybe near the back of the aquarium
and that way your decorations will hide it so no worries as soon as we got home i went ahead and
took Sonic out floated him in the aquarium water so that he could start warming up a little bit
and then i went ahead and tested her tank water just to make sure all the water parameters were
okay because I've heard that some people's like tap water sometimes has traces of nitrite or
nitrate in it then i installed the cycled sponge filter that i had been running in my 20 gallon
aquarium for like months um if you are new to fish want to set up your first tank and you hopefully
have a friend with aquariums definitely try this trick because you want to bring over as much
beneficial bacteria into your brand new aquarium as much as possible because those amazing microbes
are going to help purify your water once your fish starts pooping in the tank i got her this green
USB nano air pump that is nearly silent and then of course gotta install a check valve for her in
the airline tubing so that her kitchen counters won't flood if there is ever a power outage
I'm gonna stick on a little thermometer on the side just to make sure the water is always a nice
78 to 80 degrees Fahrenheit and there we go everything is ready for Sonic within the hour
the water did clear up as i predicted and Sonic was getting used to his new home i had sent Zelda
to PetSmart to get some decorations because i feel like their fake plants look a little bit
more natural and i think she did a really good job of picking ornaments and decorations that
were of different heights colors and textures it makes it like really interesting and of course
all of them are soft enough that they won't damage sonic spins because we're not going to start off
with live plants at first we took a cutting from one of Zelda's many house plants this one happens
to be pothos which is really hardy does well even in low lighting and you just stick the stem
in the water and then it'll start producing roots then those roots will start absorbing the toxic
nitrogen waste that comes from Sonic's poop sonic needed a little time to get used to everything
so Zelda and i actually left on a little mini vacay for a day or two and then when we got back
i decided to show her the ropes of how to take care of him so Zelda this section is for you
for now we are going to feed him Xtreme floating betta pellets which comes with a
nice little serving spoon and we're going to start off with about seven to eight pellets
and then i taught Zelda how to kind of watch his weight his body shape and then
she can change the portion control based on if he's too skinny or getting too obese
eventually we will introduce more variety into his diet which i covered previously in this video
i brought her some water test strips as you saw previously so she knows when to do a water change
and because we're in the kitchen we can just kind of push the tank over and then use an aquarium
siphon to vacuum the gravel directly into the sink so no need for buckets Zelda is actually a pro at
using aquarium siphons already because she did the miraculous task of choosing to birth her children
at home and she actually used a giant python siphon to drain out the inflatable birthing pool
but if you need a refresher on how to use one I've got a video over here that you can check out
final reminder Zelda is set a reminder in your phone to clean that filter every one to two
months it is not filters are not some kind of magical black hole where fish poop goes to
disappear they are more like a litter box where you do have to clean them and empty them out of
waste so that they don't become clogged up a week later i got an update from her telling me that
the squares on her test strip were white meaning she has zero ppm nitrite and nitrate so there's
no need to do a water change and also Sonic is starting well the betta fish formerly known as
sonic now known as Gill is coming out a lot more and is happily swimming around in his new home
as hard as this decision was to re-home Gill I'm so glad to hear that he is doing better with his
new family and to be honest you know i only have three tanks so not being able to share
one of them with you was also kind of tough but now that he has gone I've actually been able to
add a couple of algae eaters to this tank because as you can see it ain't looking so good so if you
have any recommendations for peaceful nano fish that can go with some little nerite snails let
me know down in the comments take time to enjoy your aquariums and I'll see you in the next video
anonymity