Feesh! - Firion 3

Today certainly is a lot of things. My birthday, the release date of Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, and also Firion's anniversary since he arrived here on my birthday! =D So today's entry will be about Firion, although I still never got that LED light. This post will also double as a guide for keeping betta fish as a pet.

But... for the sake of keeping record of things, all I did today was wake up, help print some papers for Vicki, and ate lunch/dinner at Buca di Beppo at the Florida Mall. Enjoyed my meal there, got a free birthday ice cream brownie there, along with some more of their delicious Tiramisu cake. After that, we walked around the mall until they closed. Didn't buy anything, since I thought that I should just wait for Black Friday before buying anything. Gotta take advantages of those sales, especially with a tight budget as an unemployed person.

Anyway, back to Firion. I've talked a bit of some small issues of taking care of him, like the water temperature, but I haven't really talked about the details of actually keeping a betta fish pet. When I was talking to someone in a forum who had no experience in taking care of betta fish, she had a lot of questions about what all I did to take care of Firion. So I'll just go down the list quickly.

1. I feed him daily, maybe a second meal in the same day depending on how much he ate earlier that day.

• The food I feed Firion is the same brand on the image. 
• At average, Firion will eat about 7 to 10 of these pellets a meal. 
• I feed each pellet to him one by one to ensure he eats all I give him. Keeps the water cleaner that way. 
• If he eats less than 6 due to lack of interest in his food, I will feed him again later that day, just in case. If he still doesn't eat then, well, hope that he'll be hungry enough the next day.

There has been times when he would eat a little less, but this was before I got the thermometer in his tank, and the water may have been colder than what I usually keep it at. They tend to get dormant when the water gets a bit colder, so they won't go as hungry, I believe. At least, that's what I read on some page somewhere on the internet. I just want Firion to be as comfortable as he can in his little bowl.

2. I replace his water about every 2 weeks.

•  When replacing the water, I clean his fishbowl with water. I don't use soap or any other cleaning chemicals to avoid exposure to toxins.
• Any decorations used for your aquarium is suggested to be washed and rinsed in hot or warm water. 
• When the bowl is rinsed clean, I fill it back up with water, and use the conditioner in the image to make the water immediately habitable for Firion. Chlorine and other anti-bacterial chemicals in tap water can be harmful for your fish.
• I think it was suggested somewhere that you should replace the water every week rather than every 2 weeks, but sometimes I don't get the chance to, and I go through those water conditioners a lot faster than anything else as it is. I don't see the fishbowl getting particularly dirty within the first week of cleaning anyway.

3. Entertain Firion, especially if he's swimming around in an attention-grabbing way.
Okay, I don't know whether if this is all that necessary, but better a happy fish than a bored-to-death fish. I try to keep him close to where I am the most, which is conveniently next to Pugyuu. Sure, he's not always interested in the games of League of Legends or Team Fortress 2 and stuff I play, but sometimes something simple like putting a toy next to the bowl for him to look at can entertain him for a while. Heck, the object that grabs the most attention, although it might be a hostile reaction, is a hair brush. Not sure why. Maybe he just doesn't like spikey things.

Although completely unrelated to Firion, I definitely need a much better device to take videos with. My current camera phone is no where near good enough to capture things indoors it seems. Everything comes out dark, even with my attempt at better lighting using a desk lamp, albeit not directly at the bowl. Perhaps another Wishlist is due already for things that I have missed, and things that would help me make better blog posts, like a better camera/camcorder.

Aside from those 3 points, there's nothing else special that I do to keep Firion, but I care all the same. Here are some things that had crossed my mind, but don't do.

• Pump air in the water. This is done for goldfish, but not for betta fish. They don't need oxygenated water, and they prefer still water, which the bubbles would stir around if aerated. 
• Use bottled, spring water. It's probably okay to do this, and I've considered it, but I don't think it's the BEST option, at least not as an alternative for using the water conditioner above. Not sure what all the conditioner does, but I'm afraid unconditioned water may also breed unwanted, harmful bacteria, especially if not cleaned often.
• Feed him flakes. A friend of mine got me some free samples of fish flakes, but... I'm afraid Firion doesn't even acknowledge the flakes as food. I only tried once, but I doubt flakes have the proteins that betta fish need anyway. Variety in food would be ideal... but if Firion won't eat flakes, I won't force it on him.

That covers most of it, really. Hopefully this will be a helpful guide for keeping betta fish as a pet for other people. If you feel that I've missed some details or something, feel free to leave me a comment, and I will answer your questions as necessary.

Happy Anniversary, Firion!