Our Fish Died 
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Our Fish Died
We bought a 5.5 gallon tank a few weeks ago. We set it up. It has a light and a filter, no heater.
I went to the pet store and they said I could only have 2 gold fish or 1 beta in a tank that size. Any other type of fish would require a heater, which was $30.
So I opted for the Beta, he was a beautiful aqua blue fish. They gave me some beta food, which is dried grubs. The lady at the store said they only needed 3 or 4 per day, but the fish always looked hungry, he would come to the tank to see me everytime I went into Matt's room, so we feed him a little more than 3 or 4 grubs.
Anyway he has been sleeping a lot these past few days. DH told me this morning that the fish was dying. I went in to check on him and he had a weird grey patch behind his head and he was dead.
They told me at the pet store that beta's where impossible to kill and that they don't need a heater or even a filter (which we had).
I have never had a pet die under my care before, I feel terrible, I don't know what we did wrong. We treated the water, fed the fish and I thought gave him a good home.
Anyone have any ideas on what happened to our poor little fishy? We only had him 2 weeks.
I dont know what happened to your fish but the people at the fish store are right. Betas are notoriously hard to kill. My son had one that deserved better care than it got and it lasted for a couple of years in a cold bedroom. I would clean out the tank and try again. You dont know if that particular fish was old or sick when you got it. I think it was just bad luck. Sorry to hear about the fish.
If it had a spot on its head, it probably had a disease (ick is very likely). Also you don't need to feed a beta grubs, they make a great flake food which is much easier. Fish die, sometimes they just don't adapt to the new water, overfeeding can be an issue, go get another one and it will be okay!
I have a beta that I only feed once a day, per the pet shops instructions, the food I give him has flakes & grubs chips (I guess you could call it).
The instructions I was given was to empty a 1/3 of the water once a week & replace it with bottled water.
By the sounds of it I have to agree with Kaye, probably Ick. I had alot of luck with Beta's. The last one we had for 4 years.
I was thinking ick also.
More than likely it was ammonia or nitrite poisoning...
It takes about a month for bacteria in a new fish tank to grow sufficiently to metabolize the fish waste.
Until those bacteria are established, toxic levels of ammonia and nitrite will build up in the water.
The only way to get rid of these toxins during the first few weeks is feed very sparingly and change about 1/3-1/2 of the water every couple days or so.
With an established tank, you should change between about 1/3 of the water once a week to keep the water healthy for the fish.
New Tank Syndrome
Ick looks like tiny white spots all over the fish's body.
With nitrite poisoning the fish's color will appear very pale and they will lay on the bottom of the tank with their gills moving rapidly. This is because they are no longer able to absorb oxygen from the water (slowly add(over a day of so) about 1tsp of table salt per gallon to help them survive)
Ammonia burns a fishes gills and is toxic if your water is hard (ph >7.5 or so). Not a problem if you have soft acidic water (ph 7.0 or less).
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