Jewel seems to be back to normal, she must have dropped her eggs.

Hi saph, I phoned the pet store and one of the guys that work in the fish room assured me that Jewel is likely "pregnant" it is rare for a female to produce eggs without a male around, but I probably accidentally started it by taping a cosmetic mirror to her tank. So in a couple weeks, she'll lay her eggs and eat them. I learnt my lesson. Never again will I just leave a mirror taped to her tank!!

Jewel just hasn't been her normal cheerful self today. She will come over to me, or a visitor briefly to say hi, then she goes back on yop of her filter (her usual spot). She still has quite a belly. Kind of looks like a puffy area under her chin. Am I over feeding her, or does she have eggs? Should I just feed her once a day (like I used to) or is there a way to get her to release her eggs without a male? Maybe I should ask my friend if I could keep her fish for a couple nights. What do you suggest? I tried looking for suggestions in the forums.

Last week, when I cleaned Jewel's tank out, Since I put her into a tiny square temporary container, I took her into another resident's room for a quick visit. She seemed to really enjoy the experience. I think I'll do this every time I give her tank a good cleaning, every 8 days. Is it common for betas to thrive being in a humans present, or do I have an unusually sociable fish?

i use a 6 in 1 aquarium test strips from tetra.
its the nitrite that i'm questioning. it says, on the bottle, "NITRITE IS A WASTE PRODUCT PRODUCED BY BACTERIA IN THE BIOLOGICAL FILTER AS IT BREAKS DOWN AMMONIA. NITRITE IS EXTREMELY HARMFUL TO FISH AND CAN RESULT IN SEVERE FISH LOSS. LEVELS SHOULD BE TESTED WEEKLY" one day, the level was 0, but i changed 100% of her water anyway. 4 days later, it was at 160, unsafe. i didn't have a filter or a heater in DB's 2 litre vase, nor did i test the water at all. i'm going to look in the chat areas to see if anyone else has this sort of question.

Hmmmm... Never heard that one before. Keep up on regular water changes and water test and you should be just fine. :)

I changed 50% of Jewel's water today, and I was reading the label for the water test strips. It said something like one of the levels can be increased by the filter and can lead to severe fish loss. Should I just remove the filter from her tank altogether? I really don't know if it is helping with anything anyway.

My profile picture is a picture I just took of JewelS tank. It was taken about 10 minutes ago

I'm doing a water change tomorrow, so I'll get a better beta pic then

Could you post some pictures of your tank??? I'd LOVE to see it!!! :D