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A clean and healthy environment means a happy and healthy betta! It is very
important to maintain good water quality to prevent disease and depression.
Here are a few tips to keeping your betta's home in tip top shape!
Tank Maintanace
Rather than cleaning the entire tank once every few months, it is much easier
and less stressful on your fish to do partial water changes once a week. For
my tanks, I use a gravel vacuum and remove about 25% of the water, making sure
I pass the gravel vacuum over every bit of the gravel. Then I syphon new,
conditioned water that is the same tempurature as the tank back in. I try not
to pour the new water directly into the tank, because the current kinda freaks
the fish out. Instead, I set up the syphon and go watch tv or work on some
jars. I also have a couple mystery snails (aka Apple Snails) in my tanks.
They are very good at controlling algea, plus they are quite entertaining.
Sometimes more aggressive males will pick on the snails, but eventually, the
novelty wears off and they leave the snails alone, only to pick here and there
every now and then. As far as salt goes, I alternate using salt every other
week. This is to keep down the salt levels. When water evaporates, the salt
remains. Overtime, you could end up with too much salt in your water. This is
why I alternate adding salt to my tank water for water changes.
Disinfecting a Contaminated Tank
I only do a complete tank cleaning every once in a blue moon if I suspect
there is a problem with the water quality or there was a sick fish in the tank.
In the case of a sick fish, I quarentine the fish in a jar, remove all the
gravel and let the tank soak in a 30-to-1 water-to-bleach mixture for 30-60
minutes. Then I rinse VERY VERY well and let the tank soak some more in water
that has extra water conditioners in it for a LONG time, sometimes overnight.
I rinse the tank VERY VERY well some more to make sure all bleach residue is
completely gone, otherwise, my fish are completely DEAD! Yes, bleach kills
fish, but if used properly, it kills disease too, making tanks a happy fish
place! Some people will say you can heat gravel in the oven to disinfect it,
but this could be dangerous. If the gravel is pourous, there could be trapped
water inside the rock's pours that will expand as it heats, causing the gravel
to explode. Instead, I use a very salty solution to soak the gravel and
pourous rocks or decorations in. Remove them from the soulution, and let them
dry completely for a day or two. Then resoak them in fresh water before adding
them back to the tank. Live plants can be quarentined in a jar with full water
changes every few days. I don't add them back to a tank for about a month or
two. Plastic and silk plants can be disinfected along with the tank.
Jar Maintanace
Jars require a little more patience, especially if you have a bunch of them!
The water in jars needs to be changed every three days for anything smaller
than one gallon. One gallon jars can be changed once a week. Remove the betta
with a soft net, put him somewhere where he won't be knocked over into the sink
and down the drain. Pour out all of the water, rinse the jar a couple times
with water from the faucet. Pour fresh clean, conditioned water into the
jar, and dump the betta back into the jar. The betta will be alright for those few
seconds out of water while you clean the jar. Remember, they breath air like
we do, so they will not suffocate outside of water, but the will dry out into
Betta Potato Chips, so be sure to get him back into the water pronto! Make
sure the water you are replacing is identical to the water that the Betta was
in before. It should have the same tempurature and ph levels. Once a month,
you should clean the jar really well. Get a fresh cleaned jar to use for the
betta and put his old jar in the dishwasher. When you remove the jar from the
dishwasher, make sure there is no soap residue. Overtime the jars could grow
algae. Regular monthly thorough cleanings will prevent an algae bloom.
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