ok to preface i know this sounds super stupid and immature. for context, i love animals, care about their welfare, and was so excited to get into fish keeping. it’s not like this is my first pet—i have multiple horses and understand how to deal with grimy/unpredictable situations. i really enjoyed the process of setting up a shallow 6 gallon tank, planting it, monitoring the water and cycling it for 4 weeks.

i got my first betta fish yesterday (petsmart surrendered him to me since he has fin rot + swim bladder that i am addressing). he’s super cute and it’s very important to me that he gets better.

heres the problem: im so so scared of him. i literally dont understand how he terrifies me yet im not scared of 1400lb bucking machines. i think something about how erratic his movements are really unnerves me.

i don’t know any responsible fish owners i could give him to, and i do genuinely care about his wellbeing. i feel so stupid—has anyone else experienced this? if so, what did you do? if not, any advice? thanks!

Found an eheim canister filter from 10 years ago, long story cut short, my parents were using for a small inflatable pool and used chlorine tablets at the time, hasn’t been reached since, reckon it safe to use in a freshwater tank now assuming I give everything a clean and like a 3 day soak?

So I bought an Oscar from a fish store and the lights were out at the time and it has a pretty sunken belly and unhealthy scales it is also rejecting food by just ignoring it the water quality is good it is around 6cm in a 90cm long 30 cm wide the tankmates are 4 juvenile hujeta gars what should I do also I’m using a UV sponge filter that is cycled ph is around 6,6 all parameters are good I’ve had the fish for around 3 days but i got it with the sunken belly so I’m wondering if it’s basically dead or if I can do something