PARACETAMOL DIED

my poor fishy, I only had her for 3 months. it was such a fun 3 months, i hope i can fulfill her home into something she would have liked, like a shrimp tank. 

dearest paracetamol who had no color when I picked her and then gained blue and purple fins and loved playing tic-tac-toe even though I beat her every time at it. and loved to follow markers and eat food. 

3 months is terrible for a betta to only live for, so I've made note that I need to watch pH more, and do more water changes due to decomposition of almond leaves.  

Okay lets go way back to November when i begged my parents for a fish tank for Christmas, and it happened! I got $50 and a 5gal tank, so I researched what I could put in there, even though I knew i wanted a betta. 

On January 8th, I started set up the tank for cycling and went to the store for decor ideas. I bought a few live plants and felt like that should be ok for a bit. Next day, January 9th, I got some sand, I washed that sand out for like 20 minutes, it took forever to clear up, and when I added into the tank to cycle for 3 weeks, it was like I never washed it EVEN THOUGH I DID LIKE A MILLION TIMES WITH COLD HOSE WATER. I also got some random budge hides, like seriously a planter pot. 

It took a few days to cycle that, and I had the opportunity to go to the store, and find some more budget  hides, and you know those wax warmers? the ones you put a candle under and the top is a shallow bowl for wax or something. Well I bough two small ones and it was perrrfectttt.

After cycling the tank, I finally got my fish. MY DREAM BETTA, on January 25th.

I want to mention, I also found such a cute purple jar, that was a cloudy glass that could serve for a secure hide, away from other creatures; like shrimps or snails. Little did I know, she would later spend her last hours in that jar.

Little Paracetamol didn't have a name for a long time, everything felt cringe. Naming a fish is the same as naming a cat in my world, something stupid and it'll last. Maybe I should change my beliefs, as my childhood tetras lasted too long for their wellbeing, though their names were a little more sophisticated: "SpongeBob", "Patrick", "Squidward". Paracetamol came from the wise tiktok slideshows, one of them being a WhatsApp screenshot captioned "Doctor, what is this" with a uploaded picture of scrambled handwriting. The doctor then replied "Paracetamol". It was so touching that I needed the simplicity in my life. So then, my nameless fish gained her first title.

When I adopted my daughter, I also adopted a nerite snail, and I remember after a week, it didn't move since for seriously like a whole day. i got freaked out, and franticly tried moving it into an easy spot, as it was sitting on some rock in the corner. Obviously it didn't move after setting it in the front of the tank, it's whole world was just picked up and transported! So, I started googling like "omg my nerite snail didn't move, why!!!" and pretty much nerite snails sleep for up to 30 hours after eating a lot, meaning my tank was getting dirty quicker than it could keep up. Fast forward a few weeks, the tank was visually dirty, like stuff sitting on rocks. On February 18th i brought home a couple ghost shrimps. They were so active!! Paracetamol was not having it, but both betta and shrimp kept their distance. 

The shrimps did a good job at maintaining cleanliness, but I think they got eaten slowly 1 by 1, because activity decreased. Paracetamol got bloated around the same time I last saw a shrimp, and I had to fast her for almost a week. I got really scared, she looked BIG.I looked up how to care for her during this time and I came across a reddit page asking the same thing, but their betta was a lot worse, so I didn't have to do anything extreme. I think this was like late March.

Nothing crazy happened after that, other than me getting a couple more snails to take care of the shrimp disappearances, but it was this morning I woke up earlier and she was still resting in her purple jar. I usually feed her at 7:30-8am, well I was ahead of my schedule so I was going to come back to her at that time. I forgot, and a little after 9 I looked back and I SAW HER. I was so sad, and of course I was in a meeting so I couldn't just leave to get a pH strip and like allat. so I put her in her cup that I bought her in and have yet to take care of her.

I want to point out, she was not sick with anything, she was acting normal like yesterday and all the days before. This was like super random. I asked a fish group what happened and pretty much the lack of water change was a factor, along with the almond leaves breaking down, speeding the pH level to drop to a 6, instead of keeping a steady 7 ish, like what would have been kept with more water changes. 6 is generally safe for a betta, just a bit of the low end

. I did remove water here and there to replace with fresh water, I just didn't do it often enough since some fish people claim to rarely do that. What I know now is those are usually temporary tanks or stuff like that. 

It was very awesome to be a fishmom again, I will not remove her from my pet list in the general tab, I'm just very glad that she died peacefully, I don't know how she felt or if anything was bothering her, but she kept her bright fins so I assume there was no stress.

Here are some pictures! ALSO I'm inexperinced in photo uploads, so sorry if these are tiny or crazy big.

Day 1 (don't worry, I got more plants soon after) SO BABY. she was the smallest and most excited out of all the bettas

this was her earlier this month, April 8th