#quipper

Hey everyone!

Based on the poll from last week this will be last creature pack that will contain CR creatures based on levels, from now on I’ll be doing creatures from across the range of challenge ratings and maybe adding a few things from other books! :) Today's pack actually almost finishes up CR0 anyway so I think this is a good point to start switching it up!

I`m studying then suddenly I see fanfiction. I saw Josuke! Who is the blonde and brunette?

Dipper: what are all the medals for? 

Sunset in Quipper’s new tank

Guys, while I’m on the subject, this fucking fish

This utter scoundrel of a baby boy

I was worried he was getting stressed out in the 2.5 gallon snail tank because, while Darkmantle is lazy not very active and would have been fine in there, it was way too small for the amount of sheer rage contained in Quipper. Bettas really need at least 5 gallons to thrive, which, of course, I know very well, but I, a jerk, had fallen in love with him at my local fish store and assumed that he could handle a few weeks in the little tank while I got his new home set up. My original plan was to get him set up in the 20 long when Taako and Lup moved into their new 40 gallon tank, but Quipper was doing repetitive behaviors, he wasn’t eating, and he didn’t have space to do the normal betta behavior of randomly darting around for no reason. That’s a solid recipe for a dead fish, and while everyone has fish die on them, I don’t let mine die of neglecting to give them an appropriate environment (she foreshadowed ironically.)

So. I go out, buy a 5.5 gallon Just For Quipper tank, and do what we in the biz call A Rush Job, which I would not advise you to do if you can avoid it. Generally you have to wait for around a month for your tank to cycle properly, but if you’re diligent with water changes and you use Seachem’s Stability to rapidly establish your bacteria colonies, you can safely put a fish in a new tank. I figured that it was the best play, rather than let Quipper get sick from another month of stress. 

I took a day to set up the hardscape and plants, a day to do a few water changes to get rid of all the gunk that comes off dragonstone even when you prescrub it (and boy oh boy do I have a story associated with that process vis a vis throwing out that gunk in my bathroom garbage, where it was later discovered by a cleaning woman, who almost certainly thought it was human poop), and then I put the little boy in his new home two days ago. 

I was traveling for work all day yesterday, and when I got home, I couldn’t find Quipper. Generally, not being able to find a fish is not concerning because I give them lots of hiding places, but after an hour or so passed and he hadn’t materialized, I launched an investigation. I was about ready to concede that he had.... somehow, squeezed through the 2 mm crack of the lid and jumped out (and then vanished?), when I finally found him. He was pressed between a rock and the right wall glass, and he was not moving at all. He looked dead. 

I immediately started to excavate, already overwhelmed with guilt. See, during the first few days of a new tank, things settle into place. I figured that Quipper had found a little hole to explore, as he is wont to do, and then the hardscape settled, crushing him slowly between the rock and the glass. This meant, of course, that because I hadn’t waited for things to settle, because I had rushed him into the new tank, because I was negligent in assuming he’d be fine to chill for a few weeks in the old tank, that I was a murderer. Here I was, being all sanctimonious about not letting my fish die from neglect, and this was all my faulttttttttt. 

When I got the rock out, he just flopped to the substrate, curled up like the proverbial dead fish. He was the shape of the letter C. His eyes were black and dull. He was just barely breathing through his gills. I was 95% certain his spine was broken, but I held out the tiniest sliver of hope, because he was in fact breathing, and sometimes stunned fish look a lot like dead fish. Two hours later, when the situation hadn’t changed, I had begun googling “how to euthanize betta humanely,” when he swam (pathetically, brokenly) to the surface and began gulping air. 

Bettas have gills, but they can breathe surface air through a rudimentary lung-type structure called a labyrinth organ, which is one of the reasons you see them surviving (though not thriving) in tiny, unfiltered vases etc. The other reason, of course, is that they’re tremendously hardy fish. I was really hoping that Quipper was supernaturally hardy, even for a betta, so I gently helped him over to the top of the filter, where he could rest out of the current and only need to swim a centimeter or so up to the surface for air, and I crossed my fingers. 

Two hours later, he hadn’t moved and I had to go to bed. I resigned myself to almost certainly wake up this morning to a dead fish. The night passed with fretful dreams of every fish I’ve ever known telling me that I was a failure, and when I woke up, I morosely went over to check on Quipper. 

That little bastard boy was swimming around like nothing had happened. 

His spine appears to have miraculously straightened, his appetite has returned, he even built a bubble nest. He seems altogether thrilled with the new environment, and right back to his old angry self. Those photos up there, where he’s posing like a show betta? I took those tonight. He’s watching me type and occasionally flaring at me right now, which, frankly, I deserve. 

I gotchu! 

The post you’re referring to is here

Other useful links (from the r/bettafish FAQ): 

So You Impulse Bought a Betta Fish

What Kind of Tank Do I Need?

What is Cycling? (which has a rad picture of these guys btw)

How Do I Deal With An Ammonia Spike?/Emergency Water Changes

What Type of Betta Do I Have?

What Other Fish Can Live With A Betta?

What Decorations Should I Get?

What’s Wrong With My Betta?

Finally, uh, look at Quipper’s tank at nighttime it’s so much and it makes me so happy