Lots of people say betta are solitary fish, and this is largely true.
Under no circumstances should you put multiple male betta in the same living space.
Under no circumstances should male and female betta live in the same space for long term.
Keeping females together requires very specific setup and some generally chill-headed (for betta) fish, and should only be done if you have experience with betta fish.
I'm going to repeat that in bold text to make sure you get it. Under no circumstances should a male betta fish live in the same living space as any other betta fish.
Betta fish do not like to live with each other.
Betta fish that live with each other frequently kill each other.
Got that?
On the other hand, betta fish can have tank-mates.
When you're looking for a tank-mate for your fish, you need to take into account both what your fish needs to be happy and healthy and what the other members of the tank need to be happy.
Full disclosure: I do not have experience keeping betta fish with other fish. Most of what I am sharing here is synthesis of other people's research and experience, and not my own research and experience. Before you put other animals with your betta fish, make sure you do your own research. I do not know your fish or your life and I cannot do your research for you.
Tank-made checklist:
Is my tank big enough? Just don't try to do a mixed-species community tank in a tank smaller than 10 gallons, and I suggest going bigger. There's several reasons why. First of all is the bio-load. All living animals that you might put in a tank produce waste. Your filter (and you need one for a community tank) takes that waste and makes it into less toxic nitrate, but nitrate is still toxic in large amounts, and you don't want it building up too fast. Apart from the nitrate, the waste your tank inhabitants produce creates solid waste on the floor of the tank and in the gravel. If you have too many inhabitants, these things will build up faster.
The other reason why you need a larger tank is that different species of fish (or other animals) do not always like living in close quarters with other species. Everyone needs room to have their own territory. Some species are also social (zebra danio) or schooling (cory catfish, tetras), and you need enough room for six or more of them.
In general, betta like to occupy the top 2/3rds of the tank, so they do better with animals that like to stay in the bottom part of the tanks. Because of this, I suggest going against danios (including their glofish cousins), who also like the top of the tank.
Are the living requirements the same? Betta fish need water that's 76F-82F. They need tanks with a decent amount of cover. They need to reach the surface to get air.
Therefore, if the tank-mates do not also do best with water in the 76-82 range, or if they need to not have dense planting, or if their other living requirements do not match the betta's requirements, you should not put them in the same tank. For this reason, I suggest against African Dwarf Frogs. They need cooler water.
Are they going to provoke the betta? Betta fish like to attack anything quick moving or brightly colored, or anything that shows it too much interest. For this reason, I do not recommend putting a betta with neon tetras, who are very bright. Glofish are out. Lyretail mollies have big fins that draw betta's attention.
Are they going to attack the betta? The answer to violence is not more violence. The answer to an aggressive fish is not another aggressive fish.
Betta tankmates that I've personally had good luck with: ghost shrimp (and I've heard that other nonaggresive shrimp like bamboo shrimp work very well, though cherry shrimp can become dinner if your fish is so inclined), pond snails and other snails that are small (including mystery snails and apple snails, if you have a backup plan for when they outgrow your betta tank), and marimo. Due to the extra stress of making sure that everyone in the tank gets along, and the fact that some days I work a lot of hours and don't get a chance to look at my tank beyond feeding everyone, I don't keep community betta tanks with other fish. I'd rather just have more betta fish. I do really like ghost shrimp with betta, though. They're exciting to watch and generally stay at the bottom of the tank. They're willing to defend themselves if the betta gets curious, but they rarely actually attack the betta. Marimo are not animals. They are balls of algae. However, you can give them a name and talk to them, and they never disagree with your betta. Marimo are the perfect pet.
Now you need to ask more questions:
How aggressive is your betta? Some betta fish are very aggressive, and some aren't as aggressive. If your betta flares at everything that goes past, he's probably not a good candidate for tank-mates.
If you are purchasing a betta specifically to put in a community tank, consider getting a female. While aggressive, the female betta are generally less aggressive than the males. While your fish (boy or girl) is in quarantine for 30 days (which you should do with every fish that you will put in a community tank), you'll get to know them and their aggression levels. If you buy a betta to put in a community tank, be ready to give them their own environment or rehome them if it is clear that they are too aggressive for the community tank.
But what about sorority tanks?!
Lots of people like to crap on sorority tanks, but I have seen them done well. A sorority tank is a large (20long or larger), very densely planted tank, with at least six female betta in it. Once you establish the tank, the girls will establish a pecking order and territories, and stop trying to kill each other. It's very important in a sorority tank to carefully monitor it for stress or bullies, and to be ready to have a place to have an overly-aggresive stay in a solo tank (or ready to be rehomed), in case things don't work out.
I do not suggest a sorority for a first tank. I think you need experience learning how to identify healthy fish and stressed fish and sick fish before you try something this complicated.
In fact, I do not suggest a community tank with betta and other fish as your first tank. In a community tank, you need to know what it looks like when your fish are hungry or sick or stressed. You need to know how to be in tune with how your fish is feeling, before setting up an environment where that is likely.
Remember, when you're an aquarium owner, keeping the fish healthy and happy, and meeting their needs, is much more important than what you think will look good. You are in charge of their entire ecosystem, and you owe it to them to have it be a safe and healthy one. If you want fish that will do whatever you want, that you can look at without needing to worry if they'll fight or become stressed, well, there's a lot of iPad apps for that that you might want to check out instead of hurting real fish.
Wednesday, May 18, 2016
Friday, May 13, 2016
Betta care braindump
I could talk for pages about betta enclosures, and I will later. Having a good setup makes having a healthy betta much easier.
For now, if it's under 1 gallon, get a bigger one. If it doesn't have a heater, get one (that's not the Aqueon betta bowl heater). If it doesn't have fake plants (the kind that aren't too scratchy) and a cave to hide in (terra cotta pot on its side works well), get that too.
Quick few myths, busted: Plants don't filter your water. Snails and shrimp don't filter your water. If you have a filter, you still need to change your water regularly. There is no maximum size for a betta tank, as long as there aren't too many big open spaces.
Food: Bettas are carnivores and can't digest plants. Because of this, you should find a food with a high meat content and a low grain/filler content. I feed my fish Omega One Betta Buffet, because it's got quality ingredients and is available at petsmart.
Because your betta will crap out all the non-meat parts of their food, feeding a pellet that's high in meat and low in fillers will make your fishy poop less, which is important to keep in mind if you have a smaller or unfiltered enclosure.
One of the top betta killers is obesity. Also, if you feed too much, the uneaten food will sit on the bottom and foul up your water. Pellet size differs between brands, but if I smush all the food I feed in one feeding together, it is about the size of half a pea. Their stomachs are about the size of their eye. With Omega One sized pellets, I feed four to six pellets, once or twice a day.
You can suck uneaten food off the floor of your tank with a turkey baster (one that is kept exclusive to fish and not used for cooking).
Water: You can't use the water out of your tap without treating it. Water conditioner is cheap and works almost instantly. I use Seachem Prime because it's very concentrated, but I also use Tetra AquaSafe/BettaSafe, because it's readily available. Stress Coat+ has aloe in it, which is good if you've moved your fish or if he's sick, but it's also expensive.
Prime also can detoxify ammonia for short periods of time, so I add about 2 drops per gallon every other day in an unfiltered tank. This does not replace the need for weekly water changes.
Betta can adapt to a wide range of PH and KH levels, so don't worry about trying to change them. The chemicals available for changing your PH are actually pretty bad for bettas, because it makes an unstable PH, and they need a stable PH more than they need the technically 'correct' PH.
If you're really concerned about a high PH, adding a piece of driftwood to your tank can help, and looks pretty.
Water Changes: Water changes stress your fish, so it's important to not do them more than necessary.
If your tank has a filter, you don't need to change out all the water. On a 5-gal tank I change about 1/2 the water every week or every other week. On my 20-gal that has 4 betta in it. I change about 1/4 of the water every week or every other week.
If your tank does not have a filter, or is under 2.5 gallons, you have to change all the water every week. You cannot skip a week, and being even a few days late can have bad effects. In a 1 gallon tank, I suggest changing the water every 5 days.
If you want to know FOR SURE when you need to change the water, pick up a liquid ammonia test and test your water daily. If the ammonia level reaches .25, change your water. If your ammonia level doesn't reach .25 in a week, still change your water, because your level of dissolved solids will be pretty high by that point.
If you have a filtered tank, use a liquit nitrate test kit. You need to change bi-weekly or when your nitrate level reaches 40, whichever comes first.
To do a partial water change on a filtered tank, use a siphon and a bucket dedicated to fish. I like the kind of siphons with a priming bulb, and I like the 5-gallon bucket I got at the hardware store. Use the siphon to clean the gravel in your tank too.
To do a full water change on a small tank, start by getting the fish out of the tank and into a cup (the one he came in will work well). I don't use a net, I just scoop with the cup. Then dump out all the water, rinse out your bowl, fill the bowl up with water and dechlorinate it. After the bowl's halfway full, add your rocks and plants back in. If you add your rocks before your water, you can break your bowl if it's made of glass. I find that larger, marble-sized rocks work better than pea gravel for unfiltered tanks, because they're easier to dump out and put back in.
On my 2.5 gallon unfiltered tank, I leave my fish in and siphon the water down to as low as I can go without upsetting the fish, and then adding in dechlorinated water.
Always try to match your water temperature with the temperature of the water the fish was in. Be careful not to add too hot of water--remember, 82 degree water (the max temp for a betta) will still feel cool on your wrist. After a while, you'll be able to judge the temp by feel, but for the first month or so, use your thermometer to check.
Some people will tell you to do 100% water changes every day for unfiltered tanks. I find that the stress of changing the water every day doesn't outweigh the consequences of living in a low-level ammonia environment, and that twice a week is sufficient.
That's all I've got for tonight, so let me know what else y'all'd want in a care sheet and I'll add it.
For now, if it's under 1 gallon, get a bigger one. If it doesn't have a heater, get one (that's not the Aqueon betta bowl heater). If it doesn't have fake plants (the kind that aren't too scratchy) and a cave to hide in (terra cotta pot on its side works well), get that too.
Quick few myths, busted: Plants don't filter your water. Snails and shrimp don't filter your water. If you have a filter, you still need to change your water regularly. There is no maximum size for a betta tank, as long as there aren't too many big open spaces.
Food: Bettas are carnivores and can't digest plants. Because of this, you should find a food with a high meat content and a low grain/filler content. I feed my fish Omega One Betta Buffet, because it's got quality ingredients and is available at petsmart.
Because your betta will crap out all the non-meat parts of their food, feeding a pellet that's high in meat and low in fillers will make your fishy poop less, which is important to keep in mind if you have a smaller or unfiltered enclosure.
One of the top betta killers is obesity. Also, if you feed too much, the uneaten food will sit on the bottom and foul up your water. Pellet size differs between brands, but if I smush all the food I feed in one feeding together, it is about the size of half a pea. Their stomachs are about the size of their eye. With Omega One sized pellets, I feed four to six pellets, once or twice a day.
You can suck uneaten food off the floor of your tank with a turkey baster (one that is kept exclusive to fish and not used for cooking).
Water: You can't use the water out of your tap without treating it. Water conditioner is cheap and works almost instantly. I use Seachem Prime because it's very concentrated, but I also use Tetra AquaSafe/BettaSafe, because it's readily available. Stress Coat+ has aloe in it, which is good if you've moved your fish or if he's sick, but it's also expensive.
Prime also can detoxify ammonia for short periods of time, so I add about 2 drops per gallon every other day in an unfiltered tank. This does not replace the need for weekly water changes.
Betta can adapt to a wide range of PH and KH levels, so don't worry about trying to change them. The chemicals available for changing your PH are actually pretty bad for bettas, because it makes an unstable PH, and they need a stable PH more than they need the technically 'correct' PH.
If you're really concerned about a high PH, adding a piece of driftwood to your tank can help, and looks pretty.
Water Changes: Water changes stress your fish, so it's important to not do them more than necessary.
If your tank has a filter, you don't need to change out all the water. On a 5-gal tank I change about 1/2 the water every week or every other week. On my 20-gal that has 4 betta in it. I change about 1/4 of the water every week or every other week.
If your tank does not have a filter, or is under 2.5 gallons, you have to change all the water every week. You cannot skip a week, and being even a few days late can have bad effects. In a 1 gallon tank, I suggest changing the water every 5 days.
If you want to know FOR SURE when you need to change the water, pick up a liquid ammonia test and test your water daily. If the ammonia level reaches .25, change your water. If your ammonia level doesn't reach .25 in a week, still change your water, because your level of dissolved solids will be pretty high by that point.
If you have a filtered tank, use a liquit nitrate test kit. You need to change bi-weekly or when your nitrate level reaches 40, whichever comes first.
To do a partial water change on a filtered tank, use a siphon and a bucket dedicated to fish. I like the kind of siphons with a priming bulb, and I like the 5-gallon bucket I got at the hardware store. Use the siphon to clean the gravel in your tank too.
To do a full water change on a small tank, start by getting the fish out of the tank and into a cup (the one he came in will work well). I don't use a net, I just scoop with the cup. Then dump out all the water, rinse out your bowl, fill the bowl up with water and dechlorinate it. After the bowl's halfway full, add your rocks and plants back in. If you add your rocks before your water, you can break your bowl if it's made of glass. I find that larger, marble-sized rocks work better than pea gravel for unfiltered tanks, because they're easier to dump out and put back in.
On my 2.5 gallon unfiltered tank, I leave my fish in and siphon the water down to as low as I can go without upsetting the fish, and then adding in dechlorinated water.
Always try to match your water temperature with the temperature of the water the fish was in. Be careful not to add too hot of water--remember, 82 degree water (the max temp for a betta) will still feel cool on your wrist. After a while, you'll be able to judge the temp by feel, but for the first month or so, use your thermometer to check.
Some people will tell you to do 100% water changes every day for unfiltered tanks. I find that the stress of changing the water every day doesn't outweigh the consequences of living in a low-level ammonia environment, and that twice a week is sufficient.
That's all I've got for tonight, so let me know what else y'all'd want in a care sheet and I'll add it.
Betta Care: To Filter or Not To Filter
To filter, or not to filter, why you might need a filter, and what filter to use.
Unlike a lot of people who give out betta advice on tumblr, I have quite a bit of experience keeping betta in unfiltered bowls. I maintained all the displays for work (unfiltered bowls between .5 and 2 gallons, plus ~60 fish in cups at any given time), and watched fish in various sizes of enclosure suffer health consequences based on being in those containers. I have firsthand experience when I say what my minimum size is for a healthy betta.
I'm going to make a controversial statement here when I say that I don't think betta fish absolutely need to be in a filtered setup. One of my fish has lived in an unfiltered/100%water change weekly 2.5 gallon tank for several months now, and is healthy. He's not just suffering no consequences, he is actually healthy. When I got him, he had developed severe swim problems due to being in a high-ammonia environment for months. He still has problems floating and swimming, and would not be healthy if he was in a tank with a water current.
On the other hand, I had a very large betta named Steve who was living in a 1-gal bowl when I got him. I moved him to a filtered 10-gal tank and his fins doubled in length, he developed iridescent scales, and his pectoral fins went from being stick-thin to long and flowing. Steve couldn't live to his full potential in a small bowl.
What I'm trying to get at here is that blanket statements about "this is acceptable" and "this is not acceptable" don't apply to all fish. Environments that are good for some fish are not good for others. It's important to learn what a healthy betta looks like and acts like, and to compare those betta to you to determine if your environment is meeting your fish's needs.
I'm going to use the word "tank" for any enclosure that you have your betta in. This information applies to tanks, bowls, plastic shoe boxes, wherever your fish is.
A couple myths: plants, shrimp, and snails do not filter your water. Shrimp and snails actually add to the bio-load of your tank, and produce the same waste that your fish does. Plants like peace lilies and lucky bamboo are not meant to live underwater. Parts of them will decay and detract from your water quality. Marimo balls only grow .5cm a year, making them too slow of photosynthesizers to remove any wastes in your water, though they don't decay the way peace lilies do.
This is not to say that any of those are bad for your tank. All I'm saying is that having those in your tank does not mean you need to change your water less frequently.
I went over this in another part of care, but there are a few things that also contribute to your water quality worth mentioning again. If you are feeding your betta food with a high content of plant fillers and a low content of meat products, your fish will poop more frequently and produce larger poopies. In a small environment, this will make your water quality deteriorate faster. If you overfeed your fish, uneaten food will stay on the bottom of your tank. This food will decay and contribute to poor water quality.
Also, all betta tanks should be heated so that the water stays between 74-82 degrees. Living in an unheated bowl will drastically reduce your fish's life span by months or even years; you're literally slowly killing him. I'll go over heaters in another post, and just now leave you with the advice to research any heater on Amazon before you pick it up. Some heaters are unstable and have a tendency to consistently overheat and kill your fish.
So, to filter, or not to filter?
Why do we filter?
When your fish breathes, pees, and poops, it creates ammonia. Fish cannot live in an environment that is high in ammonia. If you have a filter, you grow a colony of bacteria that eat the ammonia and produce nitrate. This colony is called your biological filter. Nitrate is much less toxic to your fish. A good filter colony makes sure that your fish live in an ammonia-free environment.
If you have a functioning biological filter, you do not need to change all of the water in your tank every time you change your water. If you do not have a biological filter, you will need change all of the water every time you change the water. Because you do not need to change all the water every time you do a water change, you can have a tank that's 10 or 20 gallons without using 20 gallons of water every week to maintain it.
Why would we not filter?
You need at least 2.5 gallons of water in order to support enough bacteria to make a functioning biological filter. This means that even if you have a filter running, if your tank is less than 2.5 gallons, you do not have any biological filtration.
Betta fish come from still (not small, not dirty, still) water and don't like moving water. Therefore, if your tank is too small to support a biological filter, it is better to not have a filter running in a betta tank.
Betta fish do not produce much waste, and they get oxygen by breathing air at the surface. Because of this, they do not need water aeration, and a 1-gallon tank will not reach dangerous levels of ammonia in a week, so it is possible to keep their water livable without a filter. Other types of fish cannot live in conditions that betta are comfortable with.
What about other kinds of filtration?
Technically, a filter can provide three kinds of filtration: biological, mechanical, and chemical. The really important one is biological. Your biological filter keeps your water breathable for your fish. If your filter doesn't provide biological filtration, it's pretty useless for betta.
Mechanical filtration takes all the floaty particles of fish poop and uneaten food and plant decay, and it holds all those pieces in one place (usually on the filter sponge or filter pad). No matter how good your mechanical filtration is, it does not remove dirt from the water. Your tank is a closed system and the only way you can get dirt and waste out is to change your water. Shrimp and snails provide limited mechanical filtration, in that they like to eat waste food, but they still poop out what they eat and add it back to the ecosystem.
Chemical filtration means carbon. In the same way that you can buy a brita pitcher to make your tap water taste better, you can put a carbon pad in your tank to absorb some impurities. Pet stores will tell you that carbon is the best thing ever. Pet stores tell you that because your carbon will run out and you'll have to spend more money on carbon every month. If you have medicated your tank, or if you have driftwood in your tank that's staining your water brown, carbon is useful to have. Otherwise, I recommend you don't have carbon in your tank. When you throw away your carbon pad, you'll also be throwing away a lot of your biological bacteria colony, which is bad.
Despite what some people tell you, a full carbon pad does not leak toxins into the water. It drives me absolutely nuts when people say that and I will go fuckin' science on your ass if you demand to know why.
Should I filter my tank?
Be honest--How on top of water changes are you? An unfiltered tank can get toxic or lethal levels of ammonia very quickly without changes. If your tank is 1 gallon, I suggest changing the water twice a week (once every 4-5 days, really). If your tank is 2.5 gallons, you need to change it every single week. You can't miss a week, and you really shouldn't miss a couple days. You need to be on top of your water changes every single week. If you travel a lot, work intense hours, get sick, stay at your friend's house a lot, and might miss a water change, consider getting a larger tank with a filter.
Is your tank 2.5 gallons? If it is, you can go either way on the filter. However, due to the smaller water level, your biological filter is more likely to "crash" or "hiccup," which means some of your bacteria will die and stop filtering the water. If that happens, nitrite can build up in your tank. Nitrite is more toxic to your fish than ammonia. If you have a filtered 2.5 gallon tank, be ready to check your water quality frequently.
Is your tank too big to change all the water at once? If it's going to be difficult for you to change all the water, get a filter. With a working biological filter, you only need to change 15-25% of the water every week.
What kind of filter should I get?
Remember that the most important kind of filtration for betta tanks is biological filtration. To grow your biological filter colony, you need porous places for the bacteria to live, and a source of oxygen for those bacteria. The bacteria don't float freely in your tank water; they grow on surfaces like your filter media, your gravel, and your cute pink castle your betta swims through. Most grow on the filter media, because the point of a filter is to make a good habitat for your bacterial colony.
My favorite filter for betta fish are sponge filters.
A sponge filter is a piece of sponge that is built so you can hook an air tube to it. You use an air pump to make bubbles in the sponge, and the bubbles rising out of the exit tube creates suction that draws new water through the sponge. The bacteria grow on the sponge, and the sponge provides some limited mechanical filtration. Sponge filters make very small currents (just the bubbles from the exit tube), which are good for betta fish. They're cheap too, but you can't buy them at pet stores. I get mine on Amazon. If you have shrimp in your tank, be ready for them to spend a lot of time eating off of the filter sponge.
For larger tanks, I'm a fan of undergravel filters.
Undergravel filters aren't super popular in the fishblr community, but I have never had a problem with mine as long as I clean the gravel properly.
An undergravel filter works similarly to a sponge filter. You use rising bubbles to pull water through your gravel on the bottom of your tank. The bacteria grow on the gravel.
There are two kinds of undergravel filters that I've seen. What I'm going to call "real" undergravel filters have a grating that covers the entire floor of your tank, and two lift tubes/bubble tubes (one at each end). A lot of cheap tanks now have what I call "fake" or "nonfunctional" undergravel filters, which have a very small grating that covers maybe 25% of your tank floor, and has one lift tube (usually in the center). The fake undergravel filters don't get enough lift from the central tube, and don't pull enough oxygen through the gravel to support good colonies. If your tank came with one of these, I suggest you throw it out and get a sponge filter.
If you want a filter that you can buy at the pet store, I suggest modifying a HOB or hang on back filter.
These are cheap and maybe came with your tank. It's got a tube that goes into your tank, pulls water into the filter, and returns the water to the tank via a little waterfall-looking thing.
Most HOB filters come with a carbon pad, which isn't a great home for bacteria. However, if you go into the canister filter section of the filter aisle, you'll find all sorts of great biological media. You can get sponge, ceramic noodles, bioballs, whatever they're selling that has good bacteria growing properties. Then just shove whatever it is you bought into the empty space in your HOB where your carbon used to be.
If you can find a good one, I suggest getting a nice prefilter sponge. This is a sponge you can put over your intake tube on your HOB. It reduces the current for your betta and provides even more places for bacteria to colonize. If you have a sponge with a lot of surface for bacteria, you don't need to put anything in your HOB, and use the sponge for all the filtration.
Some HOB filters have too high a water current coming from the water return waterfall, and you will need to baffle it. A lot of people use water bottles (google for a tutorial) and I've had good luck putting filter floss in the output.
If you're limited to the filters Petsmart sells, I think the HOB is the best option.
Internal filters can work, and your tank kit might have come with one. These work like a HOB and either use a propeller or rising air bubbles to draw water into it, and then return the water through a little chute. I don't like them because I feel like they take up a lot of space in the tank (compared to a sponge or HOB), the water flow is usually difficult to control, and they're built to take carbon. Some of them have electronics that remain submersed in their plastic housing, and I worry what'll happen to the fish if that leaks and gets water on the power supply.
If your tank kit came with an undergravel or an air-powered internal filter, the easiest thing to do is to buy a sponge filter, because you've already got the air pump and the tubing.
There's other kinds of filters, like canisters and fluidized sand, but they're expensive and usually overkill for a small betta tank.
Up next I guess I'll just ramble about how to decorate a betta tank for ten pages and then pretend I wrote something deep!
~Polly
Unlike a lot of people who give out betta advice on tumblr, I have quite a bit of experience keeping betta in unfiltered bowls. I maintained all the displays for work (unfiltered bowls between .5 and 2 gallons, plus ~60 fish in cups at any given time), and watched fish in various sizes of enclosure suffer health consequences based on being in those containers. I have firsthand experience when I say what my minimum size is for a healthy betta.
I'm going to make a controversial statement here when I say that I don't think betta fish absolutely need to be in a filtered setup. One of my fish has lived in an unfiltered/100%water change weekly 2.5 gallon tank for several months now, and is healthy. He's not just suffering no consequences, he is actually healthy. When I got him, he had developed severe swim problems due to being in a high-ammonia environment for months. He still has problems floating and swimming, and would not be healthy if he was in a tank with a water current.
On the other hand, I had a very large betta named Steve who was living in a 1-gal bowl when I got him. I moved him to a filtered 10-gal tank and his fins doubled in length, he developed iridescent scales, and his pectoral fins went from being stick-thin to long and flowing. Steve couldn't live to his full potential in a small bowl.
What I'm trying to get at here is that blanket statements about "this is acceptable" and "this is not acceptable" don't apply to all fish. Environments that are good for some fish are not good for others. It's important to learn what a healthy betta looks like and acts like, and to compare those betta to you to determine if your environment is meeting your fish's needs.
I'm going to use the word "tank" for any enclosure that you have your betta in. This information applies to tanks, bowls, plastic shoe boxes, wherever your fish is.
A couple myths: plants, shrimp, and snails do not filter your water. Shrimp and snails actually add to the bio-load of your tank, and produce the same waste that your fish does. Plants like peace lilies and lucky bamboo are not meant to live underwater. Parts of them will decay and detract from your water quality. Marimo balls only grow .5cm a year, making them too slow of photosynthesizers to remove any wastes in your water, though they don't decay the way peace lilies do.
This is not to say that any of those are bad for your tank. All I'm saying is that having those in your tank does not mean you need to change your water less frequently.
I went over this in another part of care, but there are a few things that also contribute to your water quality worth mentioning again. If you are feeding your betta food with a high content of plant fillers and a low content of meat products, your fish will poop more frequently and produce larger poopies. In a small environment, this will make your water quality deteriorate faster. If you overfeed your fish, uneaten food will stay on the bottom of your tank. This food will decay and contribute to poor water quality.
Also, all betta tanks should be heated so that the water stays between 74-82 degrees. Living in an unheated bowl will drastically reduce your fish's life span by months or even years; you're literally slowly killing him. I'll go over heaters in another post, and just now leave you with the advice to research any heater on Amazon before you pick it up. Some heaters are unstable and have a tendency to consistently overheat and kill your fish.
So, to filter, or not to filter?
Why do we filter?
When your fish breathes, pees, and poops, it creates ammonia. Fish cannot live in an environment that is high in ammonia. If you have a filter, you grow a colony of bacteria that eat the ammonia and produce nitrate. This colony is called your biological filter. Nitrate is much less toxic to your fish. A good filter colony makes sure that your fish live in an ammonia-free environment.
If you have a functioning biological filter, you do not need to change all of the water in your tank every time you change your water. If you do not have a biological filter, you will need change all of the water every time you change the water. Because you do not need to change all the water every time you do a water change, you can have a tank that's 10 or 20 gallons without using 20 gallons of water every week to maintain it.
Why would we not filter?
You need at least 2.5 gallons of water in order to support enough bacteria to make a functioning biological filter. This means that even if you have a filter running, if your tank is less than 2.5 gallons, you do not have any biological filtration.
Betta fish come from still (not small, not dirty, still) water and don't like moving water. Therefore, if your tank is too small to support a biological filter, it is better to not have a filter running in a betta tank.
Betta fish do not produce much waste, and they get oxygen by breathing air at the surface. Because of this, they do not need water aeration, and a 1-gallon tank will not reach dangerous levels of ammonia in a week, so it is possible to keep their water livable without a filter. Other types of fish cannot live in conditions that betta are comfortable with.
What about other kinds of filtration?
Technically, a filter can provide three kinds of filtration: biological, mechanical, and chemical. The really important one is biological. Your biological filter keeps your water breathable for your fish. If your filter doesn't provide biological filtration, it's pretty useless for betta.
Mechanical filtration takes all the floaty particles of fish poop and uneaten food and plant decay, and it holds all those pieces in one place (usually on the filter sponge or filter pad). No matter how good your mechanical filtration is, it does not remove dirt from the water. Your tank is a closed system and the only way you can get dirt and waste out is to change your water. Shrimp and snails provide limited mechanical filtration, in that they like to eat waste food, but they still poop out what they eat and add it back to the ecosystem.
Chemical filtration means carbon. In the same way that you can buy a brita pitcher to make your tap water taste better, you can put a carbon pad in your tank to absorb some impurities. Pet stores will tell you that carbon is the best thing ever. Pet stores tell you that because your carbon will run out and you'll have to spend more money on carbon every month. If you have medicated your tank, or if you have driftwood in your tank that's staining your water brown, carbon is useful to have. Otherwise, I recommend you don't have carbon in your tank. When you throw away your carbon pad, you'll also be throwing away a lot of your biological bacteria colony, which is bad.
Despite what some people tell you, a full carbon pad does not leak toxins into the water. It drives me absolutely nuts when people say that and I will go fuckin' science on your ass if you demand to know why.
Should I filter my tank?
Be honest--How on top of water changes are you? An unfiltered tank can get toxic or lethal levels of ammonia very quickly without changes. If your tank is 1 gallon, I suggest changing the water twice a week (once every 4-5 days, really). If your tank is 2.5 gallons, you need to change it every single week. You can't miss a week, and you really shouldn't miss a couple days. You need to be on top of your water changes every single week. If you travel a lot, work intense hours, get sick, stay at your friend's house a lot, and might miss a water change, consider getting a larger tank with a filter.
Is your tank 2.5 gallons? If it is, you can go either way on the filter. However, due to the smaller water level, your biological filter is more likely to "crash" or "hiccup," which means some of your bacteria will die and stop filtering the water. If that happens, nitrite can build up in your tank. Nitrite is more toxic to your fish than ammonia. If you have a filtered 2.5 gallon tank, be ready to check your water quality frequently.
Is your tank too big to change all the water at once? If it's going to be difficult for you to change all the water, get a filter. With a working biological filter, you only need to change 15-25% of the water every week.
What kind of filter should I get?
Remember that the most important kind of filtration for betta tanks is biological filtration. To grow your biological filter colony, you need porous places for the bacteria to live, and a source of oxygen for those bacteria. The bacteria don't float freely in your tank water; they grow on surfaces like your filter media, your gravel, and your cute pink castle your betta swims through. Most grow on the filter media, because the point of a filter is to make a good habitat for your bacterial colony.
My favorite filter for betta fish are sponge filters.
A sponge filter is a piece of sponge that is built so you can hook an air tube to it. You use an air pump to make bubbles in the sponge, and the bubbles rising out of the exit tube creates suction that draws new water through the sponge. The bacteria grow on the sponge, and the sponge provides some limited mechanical filtration. Sponge filters make very small currents (just the bubbles from the exit tube), which are good for betta fish. They're cheap too, but you can't buy them at pet stores. I get mine on Amazon. If you have shrimp in your tank, be ready for them to spend a lot of time eating off of the filter sponge.
For larger tanks, I'm a fan of undergravel filters.
Undergravel filters aren't super popular in the fishblr community, but I have never had a problem with mine as long as I clean the gravel properly.
An undergravel filter works similarly to a sponge filter. You use rising bubbles to pull water through your gravel on the bottom of your tank. The bacteria grow on the gravel.
There are two kinds of undergravel filters that I've seen. What I'm going to call "real" undergravel filters have a grating that covers the entire floor of your tank, and two lift tubes/bubble tubes (one at each end). A lot of cheap tanks now have what I call "fake" or "nonfunctional" undergravel filters, which have a very small grating that covers maybe 25% of your tank floor, and has one lift tube (usually in the center). The fake undergravel filters don't get enough lift from the central tube, and don't pull enough oxygen through the gravel to support good colonies. If your tank came with one of these, I suggest you throw it out and get a sponge filter.
If you want a filter that you can buy at the pet store, I suggest modifying a HOB or hang on back filter.
These are cheap and maybe came with your tank. It's got a tube that goes into your tank, pulls water into the filter, and returns the water to the tank via a little waterfall-looking thing.
Most HOB filters come with a carbon pad, which isn't a great home for bacteria. However, if you go into the canister filter section of the filter aisle, you'll find all sorts of great biological media. You can get sponge, ceramic noodles, bioballs, whatever they're selling that has good bacteria growing properties. Then just shove whatever it is you bought into the empty space in your HOB where your carbon used to be.
If you can find a good one, I suggest getting a nice prefilter sponge. This is a sponge you can put over your intake tube on your HOB. It reduces the current for your betta and provides even more places for bacteria to colonize. If you have a sponge with a lot of surface for bacteria, you don't need to put anything in your HOB, and use the sponge for all the filtration.
Some HOB filters have too high a water current coming from the water return waterfall, and you will need to baffle it. A lot of people use water bottles (google for a tutorial) and I've had good luck putting filter floss in the output.
If you're limited to the filters Petsmart sells, I think the HOB is the best option.
Internal filters can work, and your tank kit might have come with one. These work like a HOB and either use a propeller or rising air bubbles to draw water into it, and then return the water through a little chute. I don't like them because I feel like they take up a lot of space in the tank (compared to a sponge or HOB), the water flow is usually difficult to control, and they're built to take carbon. Some of them have electronics that remain submersed in their plastic housing, and I worry what'll happen to the fish if that leaks and gets water on the power supply.
If your tank kit came with an undergravel or an air-powered internal filter, the easiest thing to do is to buy a sponge filter, because you've already got the air pump and the tubing.
There's other kinds of filters, like canisters and fluidized sand, but they're expensive and usually overkill for a small betta tank.
Up next I guess I'll just ramble about how to decorate a betta tank for ten pages and then pretend I wrote something deep!
~Polly
Sunday, April 3, 2016
One of 15
Blogger doesnt like me uploading pictures from my phone, so here's a link
Check out @SeriousPollyNod's Tweet: https://twitter.com/SeriousPollyNod/status/716668820610416640?s=09
Let me tell you, I love reading stories that aren't meant for you, where you don't get all the information because you're snooping, or you feel like you are.
Famous Blue Raincoat is a good example. I once read a book called Cathy's Book, which was more an ARG than a book, and that helped change how I like to tell stories.
Also my boss leaves me sticky notes all the time, so I collected some for inspiration.
Two years ago, I made a 9 foot tall portrait of Sarah Palin out of sticky notes on the outside of a Staples. Long story as to why. Anyway, then I took down my 1200 pastel squares and they lived in my car for about a year, so those are the colors I see in my head.
Thursday, January 21, 2016
Another Project
So, for my New Year's resolution, I got off tumblr. The only exception is writing for my blog
20dollarlolita
which is about budget Lolita fashion.
On Blogger, I have
musicwithoutmusic
which is for people who would like to play stringed instruments like guitar, ukulele, and bass, but don't know how to start.
And my lack of tumblr means I'll be back here to share things like how I feel about my job, some frustrations with bipolar disorder and how people fail to understand it, and my betta fish.
I guess right now, no news is good news.
If you want lots of short updates, there's my twitter, and if you want very infrequent, costume-specific updates, check out my facebook page.
I might give BEDF (blog every day in February) a shot. For now, my job and MwM are taking a lot of my time, so I don't want to commit to blogging, when all I'm going to do is be blogging about the same day over and over. My job's streesful, but consistent. Not good blogging material.
That's about it. Sorry, guys. That's all for this post.
Goodnight
~Polly
20dollarlolita
which is about budget Lolita fashion.
On Blogger, I have
musicwithoutmusic
which is for people who would like to play stringed instruments like guitar, ukulele, and bass, but don't know how to start.
And my lack of tumblr means I'll be back here to share things like how I feel about my job, some frustrations with bipolar disorder and how people fail to understand it, and my betta fish.
I guess right now, no news is good news.
If you want lots of short updates, there's my twitter, and if you want very infrequent, costume-specific updates, check out my facebook page.
I might give BEDF (blog every day in February) a shot. For now, my job and MwM are taking a lot of my time, so I don't want to commit to blogging, when all I'm going to do is be blogging about the same day over and over. My job's streesful, but consistent. Not good blogging material.
That's about it. Sorry, guys. That's all for this post.
Goodnight
~Polly
Friday, May 29, 2015
Blah Blah June is coming
I have the tradition of failing Blog Every Day In June every year.
But I like the idea of trying to do it.
Even if I'm not successful.
See, there's this thing about saying you'll do something, and then doing it every day for a month.
This month I'm going to kind of change it up.
This month, I want to get better at both guitar and bass. My logic is that if I touch the instrument once a day, I"ll be better than if I didn't do anything at all.
See, my only friend in this city is moving, and I'm scared to death of being stuck here alone.
And I really like playing music with people.
And I think I'm good enough. I really do. I have gear I'm not ashamed of (this was a problem in the past). I have a solid ear for intervals, and a good backing in theory, and I can improv basslines in various styles, and I can write basslines based on chord progressions.
I'm passable at acoustic guitar. I'm okay at rhythm guitar.
But who cares. No big deal. I want more.
I want to be better at the actual playing. Build up the muscles. Build up the intuitive skills and the sense of where the strings are.
So here's the list of things that I can do for practicing when I don't feel like doing actual music.
You know, the stuff that you can be doing lying down in bed while you're not thinking about it.
So here goes
As for strumming, up, down, updown for guitar. Up. down, updown, fingerpicking for bass.
Eventually work in 8th notes and shit,.
The rest
But I like the idea of trying to do it.
Even if I'm not successful.
See, there's this thing about saying you'll do something, and then doing it every day for a month.
This month I'm going to kind of change it up.
This month, I want to get better at both guitar and bass. My logic is that if I touch the instrument once a day, I"ll be better than if I didn't do anything at all.
See, my only friend in this city is moving, and I'm scared to death of being stuck here alone.
And I really like playing music with people.
And I think I'm good enough. I really do. I have gear I'm not ashamed of (this was a problem in the past). I have a solid ear for intervals, and a good backing in theory, and I can improv basslines in various styles, and I can write basslines based on chord progressions.
I'm passable at acoustic guitar. I'm okay at rhythm guitar.
But who cares. No big deal. I want more.
I want to be better at the actual playing. Build up the muscles. Build up the intuitive skills and the sense of where the strings are.
So here's the list of things that I can do for practicing when I don't feel like doing actual music.
You know, the stuff that you can be doing lying down in bed while you're not thinking about it.
So here goes
As for strumming, up, down, updown for guitar. Up. down, updown, fingerpicking for bass.
Eventually work in 8th notes and shit,.
The rest
- Chromatic scales: Always chromatic scales. Bass and guitar. Up and down. Super fun.
- The stretchy one. 1, skip a fret, 2, skip a fret, 3, skip a fret, 4. So your pinky's on the 7th fret when your done. Then up a fret and again. And again. Till you hit 12.
- Hammers and pulls. Once with 1-3, once with 1-2, once with 2-4, once with 2-3. Until you're sick and want to kill pull-offs.
- Metronome training. Just everythign but with a metronome. I'm kind of shit with teh metronome, but I'm okay with a drummer. It's weird.
Tuesday, April 28, 2015
A Lesbian's Review of Pure Romance
Background needed:
This is a method much like other companies such as Tupperware, Amway, Mary Kay, Big Yellow Box, and Herbalife. All of these work through the same sort of promise: Own your own business, and you will make money! Once you make your business, the REAL money comes when you sell your business to others! This is what I'm going to define as multi-level marketing (which is not my term). Level 1: you're selling the product. Level 2: You're selling the business. Level 2 often includes hosting a party where someone else is the consultant. You're making money selling the product. They're making money getting you to sell the product. In some versions (lookin' at you, Amyway*** and Herbalife****), the real money comes in when your business you sold starts selling the business.
But we're not going to talk about that. What I'm reviewing from here on out is the level 1: the product, and my experience with the selling aspect.
THE PARTY, an overview
Pure Romance parties consist of all women over the age of 18. Well. I say women. It was specified that they should be "female". I do not know what Pure Romance's policy is on trans and nonfemale women. It may be up to the discretion or the party host or the consultant, or it may be Pure Romance's policy that the only dicks allowed are synthetic and battery operated.
Everyone sits down at the party. There was wine at mine. Our consultant/host (henceforth called GFHBF because random numbers are fun) started up with a little game, involving a lot of innuendo**** and us all admitting that we have sex organs.
The story and sales pitch we got was pretty fun. We got to try out perfumes, look at body sprays and shimmers, and then progressed into tasting lubes. They were some damn tasty lubes.
This progressed into sex toys. Bullets, and the optional c-ring they could go into. Pure Romance doesn't say "cock ring." Up next were the g-spot vibrators and a demon called the "B.O.B, your battery operated boyfriend!" It was blue. It rotated. It vibrated. It had a tiny remote control attached to it.
There were discussions about clitoral stimulation and how to find your g-spot. We skimmed through the catalog, looked at anal toys and fetish supplies, and then went into a private room with GFHBF to place orders.
I then locked my keys in my car, failed to break into it, in the hail, and called AAA.
It was a fun party. I had fun.
THE PARTY, a review on product
I love the idea that intimate products can be bought privately, among friends, and without pressure to prove anything or know anything about toys. It'd be a good environment for buying your first toys, where you can go home and not have to admit to anyone that you just touched something called "The Thumb's Up."
Some very important sex toy rules were set down. Cleaning product was available from Pure Romance, and the consultant was clear that it's needed. Silicone toy safety was covered too, like no silicone lube on silicone toys, and no leaving your silicone toys where they can touch each other. Anal toys were not to be bought without lube. All in all, good rules.
I could have gone with a little more safety on the butt stuff, personally, because I've known people to do dumb shit like puncture their colon on a toilet plunger handle or get nasty anal fissures because their partner said that anal was a good idea but wasn't quite sure how. My main issue was that most of their butt toys were silicone, and silicone lube is the lubiest of them all, your butthole needs much lube, and Pure Romance just established that you can't use silicone lube on silicone dicks.
Unofficially, I've been told by several people who know their way around bondage products from many manufacturers, including Pure Romance, to never get their fetish supplies. First of all, they were added into their inventory to cash in on Fifty Shades of Grey's popularity, and second of all, they're cheaply made. Mostly what I saw consisted of 50 types of blind folds and some badly-made whips. In general, in my opinion, fetish toys are specialized enough, and bondage/kink likes and dislikes are specific enough, that trying to find stock Pure Romance can offer would be very difficult. It's kind of like buying bras from Chinese Ebay.
Other than that, the products seemed pretty damn swell. Prices were similar to what you'd find online, but more comfortable to order, since the party goers were aware of their products and quality.
THE PARTY AND PRODUCTS, a review on inclusivity.
As I had expected, I was the only lesbian in the room. I know that I was not the only non-straight woman in the room, but I believe I was the only one who wasn't interested in penises or men.
And, also as I had expected, this wasn't something Pure Romance frequently caters to. Most girls who go to a sex toy party like that are going to be interested in a different kind of sex from what I am interested in. I'm not a lesbian trying to make everything equal or take away dick fun for the non-lesbian women. I just thought it'd be fun to share how my sexuality affected my experience here.
The party itself was very fun. There was an understanding that all of us girls like sexual stimulation and that it's nothing to be ashamed about. The consultant tended to say, "your partner" and not "your boyfriend," or "your man." Most of the conversation was about personal preference, your right to control your sex life as a woman, and about embracing your sexual desires. There were absolutely no jokes about me being gay that weren't jokes I made.
The products, however..
Look. I know that a lot of girls who like vaginal vibrators also like dick. I understand that a lot of people who like vaginal vibrators like them to look like and feel like dicks. I understand that only about 1.6% of USAmerican women identify as lesbian and that most of them probably don't go to parties like this. I understand that I am not in Pure Romance's normal demographic and I am not expecting them to cater to a side demographic like mine.
That said, while I was looking through their catalogue prepping to make my purchases, I ruled out all of the toys that would be emotionally uncomfortable to put in my me, and then kept looking. And the thing that got me was the names. Like I could just see myself going to town, about to hit it, and suddenly that evil voice that tries to make me never have fun would just go, "its name is Carl," and that'd be a great o-moment killer, and as a chick with a stressful life and frequent periods of genital numbness or total anorgasmia, I don't need the voice in the back of my head reminding me that I have Mr Know It All or The Cabana Boy all up in my vag to kill the occasional moments I get.
So, Pure Romance, if you want to cater to lesbians, which I am very aware that you may not want to do, if you change your naming structure so that the sleeker and more stylized toys didn't have obviously men/male names, I would appreciate it.
ALL IN ALL I give Pure Romance a 5/5 on concept, 3/5 on product (I'd personally prefer a smaller selection of safe and high quality toys than trying to expand it into fetish gear and anal play that you're not sure 100% how to encourage to be used safely), and a 3/5 on lesbian inclusivity, which is very damn impressive because I don't think they were actually trying for that at all. A ?/5 in trans inclusivity awaits further information before I can make that ruling.
So, women with vaginas over the age of 18, if someone invites you to a Pure Romance party, I definitely suggest you give it a shot. Stepping out of your comfort zone is always fun, and if your party is like mine, you'll stretch your comfort zone in new directions without ever feeling like you left. If you're not into toys, they're great for you. If you're thinking about toys or just getting into them, they're fantastic for you, and if you're really into toys, you might have everything in their catalogue already, but in that case you need to buy some of that rainbow sherbert lube. I'm tempted to buy some to just put on ice cream. That shit was tasty as hell.
Wishing you luck
~Polly
___
*Any solo sex toy can be used as a couple/more than couple. You've just got to think.
*That's a lie. You can buy the toys online through Pure Romance directly, but don't. You'll pay the same as you would through a consultant, your order's private, and no one's making money off it except Pure Romance. If you see something on their site that you like, hit me up, and I'll ask my consultant to send you her webpage. You'd make her fucking week.
**My mom has sold Amway for over ten years, now
***Some of my best friends are Herbalife
****inYOURend-o
- I am a lesbian
- A coworker/friend invited me to her party. It was her first party as a consultant, and she was both consultant and host.
- I knew of Pure Romance through being invited to a party once but never going, and then checking them out online.
- There were other people at the party, but for the sake of privacy, this story will be told as if they were cardboard cutouts capable of generic speech.
This is a method much like other companies such as Tupperware, Amway, Mary Kay, Big Yellow Box, and Herbalife. All of these work through the same sort of promise: Own your own business, and you will make money! Once you make your business, the REAL money comes when you sell your business to others! This is what I'm going to define as multi-level marketing (which is not my term). Level 1: you're selling the product. Level 2: You're selling the business. Level 2 often includes hosting a party where someone else is the consultant. You're making money selling the product. They're making money getting you to sell the product. In some versions (lookin' at you, Amyway*** and Herbalife****), the real money comes in when your business you sold starts selling the business.
But we're not going to talk about that. What I'm reviewing from here on out is the level 1: the product, and my experience with the selling aspect.
THE PARTY, an overview
Pure Romance parties consist of all women over the age of 18. Well. I say women. It was specified that they should be "female". I do not know what Pure Romance's policy is on trans and nonfemale women. It may be up to the discretion or the party host or the consultant, or it may be Pure Romance's policy that the only dicks allowed are synthetic and battery operated.
Everyone sits down at the party. There was wine at mine. Our consultant/host (henceforth called GFHBF because random numbers are fun) started up with a little game, involving a lot of innuendo**** and us all admitting that we have sex organs.
The story and sales pitch we got was pretty fun. We got to try out perfumes, look at body sprays and shimmers, and then progressed into tasting lubes. They were some damn tasty lubes.
This progressed into sex toys. Bullets, and the optional c-ring they could go into. Pure Romance doesn't say "cock ring." Up next were the g-spot vibrators and a demon called the "B.O.B, your battery operated boyfriend!" It was blue. It rotated. It vibrated. It had a tiny remote control attached to it.
There were discussions about clitoral stimulation and how to find your g-spot. We skimmed through the catalog, looked at anal toys and fetish supplies, and then went into a private room with GFHBF to place orders.
I then locked my keys in my car, failed to break into it, in the hail, and called AAA.
It was a fun party. I had fun.
THE PARTY, a review on product
I love the idea that intimate products can be bought privately, among friends, and without pressure to prove anything or know anything about toys. It'd be a good environment for buying your first toys, where you can go home and not have to admit to anyone that you just touched something called "The Thumb's Up."
Some very important sex toy rules were set down. Cleaning product was available from Pure Romance, and the consultant was clear that it's needed. Silicone toy safety was covered too, like no silicone lube on silicone toys, and no leaving your silicone toys where they can touch each other. Anal toys were not to be bought without lube. All in all, good rules.
I could have gone with a little more safety on the butt stuff, personally, because I've known people to do dumb shit like puncture their colon on a toilet plunger handle or get nasty anal fissures because their partner said that anal was a good idea but wasn't quite sure how. My main issue was that most of their butt toys were silicone, and silicone lube is the lubiest of them all, your butthole needs much lube, and Pure Romance just established that you can't use silicone lube on silicone dicks.
Unofficially, I've been told by several people who know their way around bondage products from many manufacturers, including Pure Romance, to never get their fetish supplies. First of all, they were added into their inventory to cash in on Fifty Shades of Grey's popularity, and second of all, they're cheaply made. Mostly what I saw consisted of 50 types of blind folds and some badly-made whips. In general, in my opinion, fetish toys are specialized enough, and bondage/kink likes and dislikes are specific enough, that trying to find stock Pure Romance can offer would be very difficult. It's kind of like buying bras from Chinese Ebay.
Other than that, the products seemed pretty damn swell. Prices were similar to what you'd find online, but more comfortable to order, since the party goers were aware of their products and quality.
THE PARTY AND PRODUCTS, a review on inclusivity.
As I had expected, I was the only lesbian in the room. I know that I was not the only non-straight woman in the room, but I believe I was the only one who wasn't interested in penises or men.
And, also as I had expected, this wasn't something Pure Romance frequently caters to. Most girls who go to a sex toy party like that are going to be interested in a different kind of sex from what I am interested in. I'm not a lesbian trying to make everything equal or take away dick fun for the non-lesbian women. I just thought it'd be fun to share how my sexuality affected my experience here.
The party itself was very fun. There was an understanding that all of us girls like sexual stimulation and that it's nothing to be ashamed about. The consultant tended to say, "your partner" and not "your boyfriend," or "your man." Most of the conversation was about personal preference, your right to control your sex life as a woman, and about embracing your sexual desires. There were absolutely no jokes about me being gay that weren't jokes I made.
The products, however..
Look. I know that a lot of girls who like vaginal vibrators also like dick. I understand that a lot of people who like vaginal vibrators like them to look like and feel like dicks. I understand that only about 1.6% of USAmerican women identify as lesbian and that most of them probably don't go to parties like this. I understand that I am not in Pure Romance's normal demographic and I am not expecting them to cater to a side demographic like mine.
That said, while I was looking through their catalogue prepping to make my purchases, I ruled out all of the toys that would be emotionally uncomfortable to put in my me, and then kept looking. And the thing that got me was the names. Like I could just see myself going to town, about to hit it, and suddenly that evil voice that tries to make me never have fun would just go, "its name is Carl," and that'd be a great o-moment killer, and as a chick with a stressful life and frequent periods of genital numbness or total anorgasmia, I don't need the voice in the back of my head reminding me that I have Mr Know It All or The Cabana Boy all up in my vag to kill the occasional moments I get.
So, Pure Romance, if you want to cater to lesbians, which I am very aware that you may not want to do, if you change your naming structure so that the sleeker and more stylized toys didn't have obviously men/male names, I would appreciate it.
ALL IN ALL I give Pure Romance a 5/5 on concept, 3/5 on product (I'd personally prefer a smaller selection of safe and high quality toys than trying to expand it into fetish gear and anal play that you're not sure 100% how to encourage to be used safely), and a 3/5 on lesbian inclusivity, which is very damn impressive because I don't think they were actually trying for that at all. A ?/5 in trans inclusivity awaits further information before I can make that ruling.
So, women with vaginas over the age of 18, if someone invites you to a Pure Romance party, I definitely suggest you give it a shot. Stepping out of your comfort zone is always fun, and if your party is like mine, you'll stretch your comfort zone in new directions without ever feeling like you left. If you're not into toys, they're great for you. If you're thinking about toys or just getting into them, they're fantastic for you, and if you're really into toys, you might have everything in their catalogue already, but in that case you need to buy some of that rainbow sherbert lube. I'm tempted to buy some to just put on ice cream. That shit was tasty as hell.
Wishing you luck
~Polly
___
*Any solo sex toy can be used as a couple/more than couple. You've just got to think.
*That's a lie. You can buy the toys online through Pure Romance directly, but don't. You'll pay the same as you would through a consultant, your order's private, and no one's making money off it except Pure Romance. If you see something on their site that you like, hit me up, and I'll ask my consultant to send you her webpage. You'd make her fucking week.
**My mom has sold Amway for over ten years, now
***Some of my best friends are Herbalife
****inYOURend-o
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