happy update and questions

[Jess]

Hi all i'm sure you remember stirfry? very wierd symptoms and all, LOL, well the medicine came in on monday and i started him on an M1 M2 combo. In the 2 days, he has colored up alot, he went from a pretty irredecent green to a red head, with a purple body and blue/ fins with red streaks going through it. then they fade to blue. He is very pretty-ful. his appitite is back not quite full force but will eat 1-2 pellets in the AM and 3 bloodworms at night. (he likes to dig for them). His fins have a lot of growing to do yet and he still has 3 days of meds to go, but he is the happiest little guy. He built me a HUGE bubble nest it completly covers one corner of his tank and is at least an 1/2 inch thick. He even enjoys flaring at his neighbor but mean old me only lets him do it for maybe 5 minutes at a time. A few simple and un-important questions
1) how many blood worms should i be feeding at a time
2) do these guys ever stay at the color they are supposed to?
3)is gravel OK in a betta home? as of now i'm using glass marbles but am thinking of switching if it is safe/ok for a betta
4) i saw an orange Betta yesterday. It was the first i've ever seen is this a rare color? or just a "just kidding i'll wear orange until you get me home" color?
Thanks in advance and for your help pulling stir-fry through this.
Jess

[ACKislander]

1) how many blood worms should i be feeding at a time
A betta's stomach is as big as his eyeball and shouldn't be fed more that that amount at a time. 3-4 is usually fine but it does depend on your betta. Mine are all full grown males and they get about that amount. It's great to hear you're offering them a pellet alternative. They'll love it.

2) do these guys ever stay at the color they are supposed to?
Yes and no. There really is no color they are supposed to stay. Healthy bettas tend to brighten and turn a more vivid in their coloring. Some change drastically from when they are sick to when they are healthy. (or when they come home from the LFS) Yours sounds beautiful.

3)is gravel OK in a betta home? as of now i'm using glass marbles but am thinking of switching if it is safe/ok for a betta
Gravel is great for bettas. In some cases it may even be better then marbles because food can't fall in between the holes and get lost and create ammonia as fast. You will have to vacuum about once a week though if your tank is cycled. If you're doing 100% water changes, you'll just have to take it out and rinse it with vary hot water.

4) i saw an orange Betta yesterday. It was the first i've ever seen is this a rare color? or just a "just kidding i'll wear orange until you get me home" color?
haha this is great because I fell for this "orange" betta too. Well, there are such things as orange bettas, but they're hard to come across at LFS. My boyfriend brought Bone home and he was all white and yellow/orange. I knew he was sick, but he was still beautiful. Once he got better, he turned bright white with blue fins. I don't know if the one you saw was really orange or not, but there is one way to fine out... BUY HIM!!!

Can you believe this fish was an orange betta when I got him?

[Rachel]

That's great that Stirfry is improving!

I use aquarium gravel in my tanks and it works great! Be careful if you get colored gravel though, it should only be washed in warm water because the coloring can leak off of it.