Day 2: Red and Stumpy

Stumpy -- This pic makes me want to cry...

Well, I left them overnight as they were, in the Bettafix treated water. This morning the water was pretty cloudy again, and stringy bits and odds and ends floating around the tank. So I cleared most of the water... I did about 80% because they were pretty freaked and I didn't want to distress them any more than is necessary. I figured 80% is better than nothing. I used stress coat as it was all I had in the house and unfortunately I used Britta water again.

Today I went out and bought more supplies. I got a chlorine treatment, aquarium salt, they didn't have blood worms, so he suggested frozen brine or white worms... I chose the brine. I did this because I was concerned that they really aren't eating much at all. I cut a pellet in half and last night I tried to feed them each a half, both sucked them in, and spat them out. I thought I would try something more tempting today. But you say to skip another day of feeding. Today will be day 2 that I know of, not sure when last they were fed in Walmart, but there was a ton of rotting food on the bottom of the cups.

I also got a little tank set up so that I am prepared to move one of them into more permanent digs when the time is right. I have that cycling now (I am learning so much!) and I used regular tap water with treatment. It's a 1.5gal tank with a small filter. How much aquarium salt should I use in a tank this small?

Right now they're in large bowls for treatment, my husband informs me that my imperial measurement skills leave much to be desired (we use metric in my home country) and when I estimated that they were in 1 and 2 gal bowl last evening I WAY overshot. While the bowls are MUCH bigger than the little cups they came in, he says one is about a gallon and the other is about a half gallon. But since we're having gill issues with Stumpy I haven't filled it up too much, I want to make it easy for him to access surface air which he does frequently. How much aquarium salt should I add to these? Should I add some salt today, or do that tomorrow with the next water change?

Red, soaking up some sunshine before I realized it was not good.

Red, (the healthier of the two) is moving around quite a bit today and if I hadn't seen where he came from I would think he was hunky-dory. Do I keep him quarantined until he makes some bubbles and eats a little? I am probably putting the cart before the horse here, but I want to be sure that he is healthy before I move him into the new tank and want to be clear on what type of behavior I should be hoping for.

This afternoon there was a sunbeam coming through the window right across their bowls. They seemed to like it and both went to that side of the bowls, but I Googled pretty quickly just in case and discovered that Betta's do not like sun... so I moved them.

Diesel (who normally terrorizes my fish) is even being super gentle with these babies.

P.S. I passed my citizenship test and interview today. Now we wait till I receive and invite to the naturalization ceremony. They expect December 7th or 14th.