Saving a Dying Supermarket Betta Fish

I was out getting some groceries when I stumbled across an aisle that was selling live betta fish. Some of them were in terrible shape, but one of them in particular was on the brink of death, and I knew I had to save him. In the coming weeks, me and this little fish had to overcome all kinds of challenges in order to try and save his life, starting out with rescuing him. Alright guys, I'm at the grocery store right now, and I didn't think grocery stores were allowed to sell fish anymore, but this store clearly has a bunch of fish for sale. So, I grabbed this betta because I did not feel right leaving him in this cup to die, so I'm going to take him home and build him a massive aquarium. I have a whole plan. I was going to use this stuff for a different video, but now, instead, this guy needs it more. So, we're going to try and save him from this grocery store, because he does not have long. Like, if we left him here, he'd probably be dead by the morning. As you guys can see, there's food and waste in the bottom of the cup, which is burning his gills because it puts ammonia in the water. So, we're going to get him home and change this cup water as soon as possible, and then get right on top of building him a tank. Guys, I just got our betta fish home, and he looks really rough. I'm not sure if he's going to make it or not, but I have this quarantine tank right here set up, where I'm going to pop him into, because this thing has really good water with no ammonia in it, and it's going to be much better than the cup he's in right now. Sorry, my basement's a mess, I'm just trying to hurry up and get him in here as fast as I can. Alright, let's get him out of here. Come here, buddy. I gotcha. Alright, he's in. Oh my goodness, he looks in horrible shape. Alright guys, this is a lot worse than I thought. He is completely on his side right now. Man, I don't know if I'm going to be able to save him. Now that we got him home, I had to act fast building him a tank. But not just a regular tank. This guy deserves something special, so I'm going to make him two tanks and connect them with a clear bridge so he can swim back and forth between them whenever he wants. Before I start the build, make sure to hit that subscribe button. It helps out the channel a ton. To start the build, I grab two fish tanks and set them side by side, giving them some space in between for our bridge. Then I grab two spotlights and put them on both ends of the tanks. And honestly, I think they look really cool. Now it's time to start scaping the first tank. For this one, I'm using regular tan sand. I put a couple big clumps on the bottom of the tank, and then I started to spread it out so it was flat and even. Now that our sand is in, I'm going to put a black background on this tank to make our beta feel more secure. Then I'm just going to grab a couple pieces of driftwood with some big anubias plants on them to help filter the water and give our betta fish some places to hide. I think this looks really good, and now our first tank is complete. For tank number two, I'm going to go with the opposite. Black sand and a tan backdrop. Basically the same thing here, I'm just going to drop sand on the bottom, and then spread it out to make it nice and even. This part of the build is always super satisfying to me. I found this piece of driftwood that looks just like a tree, so I'm going to put that in because honestly it looks super cool. Then I just bury the rock that it's attached to, and add in our next piece of driftwood to fill in the rest of the space. Now tank number two is complete. I just finished both of our tanks, and I think they look really nice. Right when I finished them, this showed up in the mail. It's a bridge between the two tanks. So I can put it like that, and then our betta has the ability to choose which tank he wants to go into. So if he's bored of this one, he can swim up, over, and into this tank, and then go back whenever he wants to. I think it looks really cool, so let's get the tank filled so we can see how this thing works. All right guys, here we go. Let's hope I don't drink a bunch of water. It's working. I got a little water in my mouth. I got to put the tube at the very top. All right, I got it up there. All right, we got it. Now that our two tanks had become one, I had to add in some filters to keep the water clean. And in case you wanted to click this, I'm just going to set it right here. Then I put a filter into the other tank, added in a heater, and now we were all good to let this tank cycle. And now that the tank was built, it was time to check back in on our betta fish and see if we could get him to eat some food. Getting him out of that cup was already making him better, but I still noticed he was shaking. And his journey was only just beginning, because now it was time to add him into his brand new mansion. After acclimating him for a long time to make sure he was fully ready, I put him into the tank and he kind of just floated to the surface. He did this for a while, but that's to be expected because he's in a brand new place. So I figured now would be a good time to give him some high quality food, and this big leaf that will help him heal. But more on that later. I only dropped in a couple of pellets to see if he was even interested in them. And in pretty much no time, he came over to give one a bite. Then he came over to check out another one, staring at it for about 45 seconds. But I sped it up so you don't have to sit through that. After debating for a while, he decided to try and take a bite. And another bite. And then he finally got it. Alright guys, he just ate two of the five pellets I dropped in there, which is an awesome sign. He actually looks super healthy right now. Also before I let him rest for the night, I got these Indian almond leaves, and I'm just going to put one really big one in the tank. This will make the water super brown and kind of hard to see through, so I'm only going to put it in this tank. But they have a ton of healthy properties like antibacterial and stuff that will help heal any fin rot he might have from being in all that ammonia from the store. But yeah, we'll check back in tomorrow, and this water should be really, really dark brown because of all the tannins that this will release. Just like I thought, the right tank was so much darker than the left tank the very next day. And I think Arbeta was a fan of that, because he must have used the bridge to come over and check it out. And now it was time for our next food. Alright, today we're going to be feeding Arbeta instant baby brine shrimp. These things are super small, so hopefully we can see them on camera, but let's see if he eats. I put two drops in, and immediately Arbetafish could tell something was up. He was scanning the water for baby brine shrimp and eating a ton of them. Then he did this weird dance thing, and I don't really know what it was, but if anyone does, comment down below, because he kept doing this whenever he was eating. I was super excited because I could genuinely tell this betta fish was healing. Arbeta fish swimming around in this water with all these beneficial tannins from this leaf plus the baby brine shrimp, he's gotta be healing just way faster than he would anywhere else. This is a perfect setup for him. So I'm glad he swam over to this tank. I think this one is a little too bright for him, so he made the choice on his own to come hang out here. Now since he ate so much food, I'm just going to let him chill, because tomorrow we have the final food, bloodworms. But bloodworms can be pretty messy, so we're going to get two friends for Arbeta fish to help him clean up. I went to the pet store and grabbed two mystery snails because these things move all over the tank and help clean up scraps. I dropped them in, and they took a super long time coming out of their shell. So in the meantime, I started thawing out some bloodworms. I dropped in a small clump, and pretty quickly Arbeta fish was interested. After finding one that landed on the driftwood, he took a bite, and then went for a couple that fell into the sand. He was looking like a completely different fish than when we first got him, and his colors were developing like crazy, even showing some blue underneath his red. And I think the snails were a perfect addition to the tank, because they're fascinating to watch clean the glass. And now that Arbeta fish has a couple of tank mates, it's time to see what he looks like with his fins fully flared out. But first let's take a minute and watch him swim through his bridge. Okay now we're going to put a mirror in front of Arbeta fish to get him to flare out his gills. Alright I'm just going to put the mirror right here real quick, let him see his reflection, and then I'll remove it. Oh he's already mad. Look at that. See how his gills are flared out and his fins are all spread out super wide? That's him trying to show that he is the boss. Now this beta still has a ways to go before he's fully healed, but we took some big steps in the right direction and he's looking miles better than when we first got him. If you made it to the end, thank you so much for watching, and make sure to subscribe because I'll try my best to give you guys updates on this guy as he continues healing. Alright we'll see you in the next one, peace.