Big Impulse Buy... oops

2125 Views 8 Replies 7 Participants Last post by Fishly, Aug 24, 2010

Fishly

Discussion Starter · #1 · Aug 6, 2010

I've been wanting to get some more fish for a long time now. I decided to get some black neons last week, but since they were in very bad condition, I chose to wait. Yesterday, I wanted to get them, but they were still looking pretty bad. I decided to go with my next best option- platies. One or two would be cool, right? Right. So, while waiting to be picked up, I decided to check out the Bettas- after all, one of mine died, so I had room.

Oh, boy. I ended up with 1 female Betta, 3 male Bettas, and 7 female (!) platies. I spent five hours last night preparing their new tank while acclimating them and I still have work to do.

When I was buying them, I thought I had room, and I do. It's just that, right now, I already have a bunch of work to do on my tanks (not to mention everything else in my life) and adding another one just makes it that much harder. I feel like an idiot.

I just wanted to tell someone about this. I'm not exactly sure what I'm going to do. I really don't want to take the fish back to the store, but I'm wondering if I should, since I got them for breeding (I've been bitten hard by the breeding bug) and if I can't handle the extra work of the parents, fry are just going to make things worse. I know this was a mistake, but I really just want to push through it instead of trying to undo it.

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albirdy

· Registered

Joined Jul 16, 2008

487 Posts

#2 · Aug 6, 2010

If you want to breed bettas, you should have reversed the ratio. You want 1 male : 3 females. And of course, you want a male platy. So to fix your situation, without returning your fish, you will need to buy around 8 more female bettas, or you may want to buy in-tank separators or small enclosures so that your male bettas don't get too rough on the others.

if you are so stressed, and obviously guilty for making a big purchase, I think you should just return it. Wait. and buy what you originally intended: black neons (which look a hell of a lot better anyway) because settling sucks.

Food for thought.

“We all want progress, but if you're on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive.”

Good luck