# SunnySideIvy's Journal of Fishes Supreme



## SunnySideIvy (Jan 14, 2015)

Hey all!
I wanted to start a journal to share some of my fish stories and adventures. I'm trying to start a one fish at a time rescue operation as well, and really wanted a place to show their transformations. A little background on myself, I'm a college age student in a pre-vet undergraduate program looking into progressing to a veterinary school and later on becoming a practicing equine veterinarian, though I would love to do work with fish to try and advance fish veterinary care for all. I love all animals, fur and fins, although I will admit I am slightly afraid of dogs after some childhood experiences. Even with this I own my own dog, a little six pound Papillon. 
Enough about me though! On with the fishes!
I've always owned fish when I was growing up. My mom had a huge 100g tank of cichlids at one point but sadly the glass shattered and all of the fish died, along with our kitchen being flooded. After that fish were put on a hold. I would get the occasional betta but by following the pet store's directions I developed an amazing talent to kill a fish within a month.
Fast forward until two years ago when I purchased a betta again. This time with a one gal tank with a filter. Enter Drax, a blue rosetail "halfmoon" male betta!








Drax was quite the vicious fin bitter and I was constantly managing his tendencies. While this was stressful it also gave birth to my extreme interest in the betta fish and their care. Drax passed last year by humane euthanasia.
I took a break from owning a fish for about two months after he died. I was heading to college soon and the drive is on average 14 hours long. Even with this in mind I fell into the baby betta trap that Petco runs.








This image is from the first week or so I had her. Wanda has been the most active and amazing fish I have had! Since she was little she's had some damage to her caudal fin, which doesn't seem to hinder her but makes her look like the most awkward double tail in existence, even though she is a veil tail. Wanda survived the journey to college, has lived through a one week break, and is chugging along. For being a Petco baby she is the hardiest little bugger I've ever met!







This is the most recent photo of her I have, zooming around her tank!
About three months into moving to college I fell for the betta trap again and purchased another fish. This time it was a sad, pale, tiny veil tail male at Walmart. I named him Bucky and brought him home. I didn't think he was going to make it when I first bought him, he hovered at the surface and never seemed interested in anything I brought him to eat. About a week into being with me he started to move and investigate his tank, he would come and say hi to me and watch me walk around my room.







This was from when I first purchased him. He was so small even the checkout lady commented on how poor he looked. Now Bucky is as active as he can be. He swims around his tank, goes through his hides, makes bubble nests, waits for his food in the morning, comes over to watch me while I drink tea and read, and even stares at me while I do computer work! He's a crazy marble boy who is as wild as could be and makes me laugh just watching him! 








While Wanda and Bucky will forever have a home with me I grew that betta itch again. I browsed the shelves of the local pet stores for hours, bought Wanda decor she would never use because she doesn't like hides, and oogled over each new shipment of fish. One day while browsing the market place on here I stumbled over a post about betta adoptions. The more I looked into it and the people who run them the more I found myself wanting to help out myself. The itch to get a betta was getting more bothersome.
I went to a pet store with my girlfriend to pick out her new fish as her first betta Crowley had just passed from a tumor. While there I noticed they had some very beautiful females. They all looked healthy so I decided that no, I would not pick one up today. My new motto had become "Pick the most beat down fish you can find".
The next week we returned to get something for her dog, and lo and behold some of the females were still there, looking depressed and sickly. I looked them over and recognized one of the females who was chasing my finger and playing with me the week before. Without hesitation I grabbed her and another tank. I was scared she wasn't going to make the ride home, she looked so poor. Initially all I could tell was her fins were damaged and she was pale and lethargic. A few days later I noticed the distinctive grains of ich and began her treatment. 
It has been two weeks since I picked up this little female named Princess and she has progressed immensely. I'm so proud of her progress. She swims over to see me when I sit down and will chase the camera around to get right in front of it. She still has a ways to go to get fully healed but I think she will be quite the charmer once she is healthy again.







This is a contrast photo from when I first got her to today, exactly two weeks.
Princess's progress has inspired me, along with viewing some of the betta rescues around the internet (especially the instagram queen_of_crowntails). Once she is recovered I would love to adopt her out, and then get another sickly sad fish to nurse back to health. Here I want to display the progress of any rescues, along with showing off Wanda and Bucky. While sometimes it is hard for me to get on here with my school schedule I do have time to post a quick thing on instagram, you can look for fish photos there if I'm seemingly inactive here under that_betta_fish. 
Even though I feel like I've got my ideas under control this may spiral away, so I'm not calling anything official yet... but.. this could be the beginning of my fish rescue operation. ;-)

Thank you for reading! Stay tuned!


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## SunnySideIvy (Jan 14, 2015)

Hey everyone!

I wanted to share an update on Princess. She is very active now and loves to watch me work at my computer. She seems to stress herself out very easily however, which is concerning because one moment she'll be fine then the next shes all stripes and wild. I'm thinking I may have to move her tank. 








I also have a cute picture of Bucky to share with everyone.


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## SunnySideIvy (Jan 14, 2015)

So Princess has advanced forward in her health extremely well, I can't see any traces of fin rot on her and her fins are almost completely healed. With that being said I think I may put her up for adoption relatively soon. I'm leaving Ohio in exactly a month and I don't think she should come with me back to Massachusetts. I have some thinking to do about if I'm willing to ship her out or if I should just meet someone halfway and hand her off in person. 
In other news Wanda's tank has developed the amazing ability to produce nasty thick green algae everywhere. It was a problem before but now it spreads like crazy in her tank. Time to up the cleaning detail in her tank for a while I suppose. Bucky has been acting a bit lethargic the past week but suddenly he has seemingly perked up, he is eating voraciously as well so I have no complaints with him right now. I'm looking into purchasing a 10gal tank next time a dollar per gallon tank sale is going on in order to divide it up for next year, as my housing arrangement is changing next fall and I think I will only be allowed to keep one tank. The weight of the end of the semester is starting to come down on me, and I have definitely become a Pro-procrastinator.


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## SunnySideIvy (Jan 14, 2015)

*PRINCESS FOUND A NEW HOME!*
I'm very proud of that little girl!!
In other news, Bucky has been moved onto my desk so he has more things to look at an occupy himself with, as he is a glass surfer. He also got a new heater!
Wanda's algae problem has gone INSANE. A literal waterfall of algae has formed out of her filter in a matter of days. I have no idea how or why this all suddenly started to happen but it is irritating me to no avail.
I have decided that rescuing and rehabbing fish is something I really enjoy, and I would like to do it again. That being said I've kind of jumped the gun and given a name to this one fish at a time operation I'm making. From now until the unforeseeable future this little rescue thing I have is called Crystal Fins Rescue! I'm trying to convince my roommate to make me a logo just for kicks :lol:
So with the new title of the rescue, I changed my Instagram for the fish. If you cannot find me on here seek me out at the new @crystal_fins on Instagram.


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## SunnySideIvy (Jan 14, 2015)

So today Wanda's tank got a makeover. I threw out her blue gravel and replaced it with white, tossed out her water wisteria, and one of her fake plants. Her moss ball went too. I ripped out the rest of everything, washed it intensely, and replaced it all. All this in attempt to control the insane amounts of algae in her tank. I didn't manage to get all the algae off some of the plants and it is bugging me but I'm hoping that the amounts I have taken off will curb the voracious growth a bit. The only problem is now her tank looks really barren with three low height plants in it. The white gravel looks very sharp though I'm glad I changed it to that color.







(I don't know why the picture is small but if you click it gets bigger.)


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## SunnySideIvy (Jan 14, 2015)

Bucky's new heater has become his new favorite thing. He goes and lays on it all the time because it's near the surface. Since this heater actually heats up to 80 degrees he has been having a right old time. No longer does he just hang around and swim slowly, he cruises around at top speed patrolling his domain. Since having him on my desk I feel as though we have a better relationship (If you can have a relationship with a fish?). The other day he was in his hide and I peeked in on him and he swam over to the side of the tank furiously flaring. Apparently he also likes to swim through the little leaves in his tall fake plant, I had no idea he did that. His color is a lot brighter too. Overall he seems very happy with the improvements to his environment.
Wanda gave me a heart attack the day after her tank makeover. She spent nearly the entire day clamped sitting in the shadow of the filter in the corner. When I went over to her she would swim to the surface, but still be clamped and pale looking. I checked on her periodically and she had me on edge freaking out! The next day she was better? It was quite random. I think that the sudden loss of plants in her tank was startling to her. She still picks that spot to lay down in now but isn't clamped. Oh well, betta fish will be betta fish I suppose!


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## SunnySideIvy (Jan 14, 2015)

Holy moly,
It's been a while since I posted here! A lot has happened too!
My two fish, horse, and I traveled 13 hours across the country back to Massachusetts at the end of April. We all arrived safe and sound too! 
Yet again Wanda's tank is growing algae, although this time is brown instead of dark green? I'm not even sure how that little fish gets her tank so dirty. Her silk plants are pretty much trashed too because of it. Sadly I went to the petstore BEFORE I cleaned tanks. I guess that just means I have to make a trip back tomorrow. 
Also, the logo for the rescue is in the works!!! :grin2:


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## SunnySideIvy (Jan 14, 2015)

Well the logo is about half complete! I'm getting more and more excited by the minute.
I went to go pick up a little guy at petco who I saw with diamond eye the other day, and he wasn't there. I'm a little disappointed but he was gorgeous so I hope someone picked him up and he didn't just retire to the sink or something along those lines. The petco out here is generally good, they have some nice fish too! I'm keeping tabs on a butterfly male who has been there for a week or two already, I think I might grab him if he is there much longer. While I was there I grabbed Wanda a new plant, she seems to really enjoy it, though it is way to tall for the way her tank is built and kind of squishes against the hood. I doubt it will do anything but I'm nervous it is going to melt or something from the light.
Bucky has been developing more black spots on him, including on his cheeks which is very strange. I'm wondering what his final color will end up being. I'm wondering if his marble gene was kicked in because of the move and different water or if the water itself is helping. He's not visibly ill so I'm not concerned, just curious! He's such a grumpy little boy, flaring at me every time I bring a camera over!


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## SunnySideIvy (Jan 14, 2015)

Wanda is over a year old now! I'm so proud of my little red baby girl! We're prepping for the move back to Ohio in a few weeks, I'm living alone this year so no one will be able to hold me back from getting more fish now (I'm doomed lol).
I'm really not a fan of this website since the update, I find it laggy and difficult. Hopefully it can win me back over.


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