# Betta water change



## hannguyen (Jul 9, 2012)

Hi Everyone,

My name is Han and my baby is Biscuit. He's beautiful blue Veiltail. I got him for about 2 weeks now and he seems happy even though he slept a lot next to the heater. He never makes bubble nest or flare at the mirror when I try to entertain him. But overall, I still love him bunches.
So, I have a question about changing his water since this is the first time I have a fish. I have him in a 1 gal bowl with a heater (I'm upgrading him to either a 3 gal or 5 gal by the end of this month). I change the water 100% every other day. Is that ok? Or should I change 50% water because I don't want to stress him out since he seems to be a very calm fish. I have API Splendid Betta Water Conditioner, the water temperature is around 75-79. 

Thank you so much for your help!


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## Kenny G (Jun 9, 2012)

Do not do 100% water changes every other day. By doing that your getting rid of good bacteria that betta's need to maintain good health and its stressful on fish. Continue doing water changes but do about 40 % every three days. Once you upgrade your tank make sure you get a good filter then you will only have to change 30% weekly. Maybe one a month do 80% water change and thoroughly clean all decorations you will have in your tank. Continue to use a water conditioner and get a heater to keep the water temps no lower than 76 degrees.


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## hannguyen (Jul 9, 2012)

How can I do a 40% water change? I have attempted to do it but I don't know how to clean out the gravel. Can you please help me step by step? Thank you  !!


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## Bettanewbie60 (Jun 26, 2012)

hannguyen said:


> How can I do a 40% water change? I have attempted to do it but I don't know how to clean out the gravel. Can you please help me step by step? Thank you  !!


HI hannguyen! You can get a small suction vacuum at the pet store. It is made for cleaning the gravel, and will help when you want to remove some of the water in the tank. You start the vacuum with suction, I use my mouth until the water is halfway into the hose, then put the end of hose in a bucket. Put the tip of the vacuum over and through the gravel, picking up any visible pieces of debris, and run it along as much of the bottom of the tank as possible. I remove most of my decorations while I do this, but I leave one or two in the tank for my fish to hide behind if he is nervous. Be careful you don't suck your fish in it! You can remove your fish when cleaning, I just don't, and my fish does not seem to mind the vacuum. I do my 50% water changes this way.


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## MyRainbowBettaFish (May 9, 2012)

Kenny G said:


> Do not do 100% water changes every other day. By doing that your getting rid of good bacteria that betta's need to maintain good health and its stressful on fish. Continue doing water changes but do about 40 % every three days. Once you upgrade your tank make sure you get a good filter then you will only have to change 30% weekly. Maybe one a month do 80% water change and thoroughly clean all decorations you will have in your tank. Continue to use a water conditioner and get a heater to keep the water temps no lower than 76 degrees.


small bowls cannot cycle


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## hannguyen (Jul 9, 2012)

Bettanewbie60 said:


> HI hannguyen! You can get a small suction vacuum at the pet store. It is made for cleaning the gravel, and will help when you want to remove some of the water in the tank. You start the vacuum with suction, I use my mouth until the water is halfway into the hose, then put the end of hose in a bucket. Put the tip of the vacuum over and through the gravel, picking up any visible pieces of debris, and run it along as much of the bottom of the tank as possible. I remove most of my decorations while I do this, but I leave one or two in the tank for my fish to hide behind if he is nervous. Be careful you don't suck your fish in it! You can remove your fish when cleaning, I just don't, and my fish does not seem to mind the vacuum. I do my 50% water changes this way.


Thank you! So just get the vacuum and it will do the job? So do i have to remove all the gravel? And do you just pour new water in there and put half of the conditioner in. Like i used to put 1/2 teaspoon in my tank so now I just put 1/4 of it? And then put the gravel back to the water? Will the vacuum fit my 1 gal bowl? 

Thank you !


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## AquaKai (Jan 2, 2012)

If you're going to upgrade then yes get the vacuum. It is extremely helpful! But like what MyRainbowBettaFish said, a tank that big will not cycle all the way through. It's better just to do 100% changes every other day. If you want to do a little less extreme changes for your betta do between 50-40% daily and do 100% once a week. It'll be a bit nicer. 

And no, you don't have to take out the gravel if you use the vacuum.

And yes, do the reduction with the conditioner.


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## hannguyen (Jul 9, 2012)

Alrighty, sounds like I'm doing the right thing. He just seems a little stressed out every time I scoop him out of the bowl to do water change. But hopefully he will be better. I will check out the vacuum when I get the bigger tank by the end of this month. Thank you guys !!


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## Aus (Feb 3, 2012)

> Do not do 100% water changes every other day. By doing that your getting rid of good bacteria that betta's need to maintain good health


Cripes. I'm sorry, but in a 1 gallon bowl, there is NO hope of beneficial bacteria doing diddly squat for your fish in terms of cycling and bacteria don't live in the water column anyway. In a 1 gallon bowl, ammonia builds up _fast_. Messing around with 40% changes will only help him be exposed to more ammonia. Aquakai had it right about 1 x 50% being okay, too, with 100%, but I'd be sticking with the 100% x every 2 days personally.

One of my fish is a chronically sickly little guy who can't have high water volume, is in 1.5 gallons permanently, and has had 100% changes every two days for 6 months. Sure, he stresses a little in his cup for 5 mins at water change time, but better that than swimming in ammonia! If my weedy little fish can cope, I'm sure yours can.

Vaccing a 1 g bowl just isn't worth the fiddling.

Put your fish in a covered cup (I use yoghurt containers that have been rinsed a LOT to spotless clean, no soap), tip the water in his bowl out, refill it with water to the correct temp, add conditioner. Spend a few minutes floating your fish in his cup in the bowl to equalise the temp, adding a little new water to the old every few mins. Let fish back into his bowl.

The vac will be very handy for the bigger tank, though!


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## hannguyen (Jul 9, 2012)

Alrighty sounds good to me!!! Thank you so much. I'll have to get him a bigger tank soon


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## ao (Feb 29, 2012)

Kenny G said:


> Do not do 100% water changes every other day. By doing that your getting rid of good bacteria that betta's need to maintain good health and its stressful on fish. Continue doing water changes but do about 40 % every three days. Once you upgrade your tank make sure you get a good filter then you will only have to change 30% weekly. Maybe one a month do 80% water change and thoroughly clean all decorations you will have in your tank. Continue to use a water conditioner and get a heater to keep the water temps no lower than 76 degrees.


Kenny, I know you mean well, but please please please keep in mind that a 1 gallon tank is almost impossible to cycle and that 100% water changes does NOT kill bacteria when done properly....

a 50% half weekly and 100% weekly WC is a tested formula for 1 gallon tanks... not everyone has a test kit and this information helps the poorest of fish keepers keep ammonia levels safe...a filter with activated carbon that eliminates ammonia, but thats is still not a cycled tank. 

When OP gets a new tank, to cycle it, it must be 5 gallons+ and it is not until the tank is cycled can OP start doing 30% weekly changes. Whilst the tank is cycling she will need a test kit to monitor ammonia levels especially if she is doing a fish in cycle.


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## hannguyen (Jul 9, 2012)

That's helpful! Thank you ;-) So should I keep changing 100% everyday then? Or 50% every other day and 100% at the end of the week?


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## ao (Feb 29, 2012)

50% half way through the week (ie wednesday) then all of the water at the end of the week(ie. Sunday). 

Make sure to suck up any excess food. (the average betta eats about 4-6 pellets a day spread out between 2 feedings) Do you have any plants in the tank? and do you have gravel. gravel traps particles very easily and should be cleaned with your 100% water changes. If your fish is already use to the 100% water changes every other day with no signs of stress, it should be perfectly happy with the new WC schedule. just make sure that your new water is the same temperature as the old and comes from the same source. Another method is to use a siphon (just a regular airline tubing wil do) and stir up the gravel to get all the yucky stuff to float out and suck that up with the siphon.


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## hannguyen (Jul 9, 2012)

Hi aokashi, I have decor and gravel in my 1 gal bowl. That's why I never did 50% water change because I can't clean them throughout. My betta seems freak out every time I did the water change. How do you know if he's stressed or not?


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## AquaKai (Jan 2, 2012)

I use Tubing and stick that in the tank and siphon it out. It's really easy and can fit in a 1g tank.


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## hannguyen (Jul 9, 2012)

http://www.petsmart.com/product/index.jsp?productId=11123493

So i was thinking about getting this! And it looks like it can fit in my 1 gal tank right now and i can also use it later for the 5 gal one!


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## MissLyss1024 (Jun 24, 2012)

My fish are in 1 gallon bowls while my tanks cycle. I do what other posters have said, 50% once a week, and a 100% once a week. I have a test kit so yes it does get ammonia levels down. What I do is when it comes time for the 100% change, I take them out and rinse the gravel and slosh it around a bit to get all the poo and stuff out. When I do the 50%, I just use a measuring cup and scoop the water out and add fresh room temp water slowly.


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## MissLyss1024 (Jun 24, 2012)

Also, I bought this siphon http://www.amazon.com/biOrb-8227280...qid=1342135223&sr=8-1&keywords=bio+orb+siphon

It takes water out and can also put water in. It comes in handy with the big tanks


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## hannguyen (Jul 9, 2012)

So you didn't rinse the gravel when you do the 50% water change ?


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## ao (Feb 29, 2012)

hannguyen said:


> So you didn't rinse the gravel when you do the 50% water change ?


you really just need to suck out the gunk that's fallen in the gravel.And usually thats done during the 100% changes. take out any uneaten food immediately


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## MissLyss1024 (Jun 24, 2012)

hannguyen said:


> So you didn't rinse the gravel when you do the 50% water change ?


The siphon doesn't work very well for the smaller bowls so no I don't rince the gravel out during the 50% changes.


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## hannguyen (Jul 9, 2012)

Okay! Thank you! I will try that but the thing is my bowl get dirty after 2 days of water change so I have to keep changing it! I need to get a bigger bowl!


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## MissLyss1024 (Jun 24, 2012)

It really depends on the fish, they are all different. 



hannguyen said:


> Okay! Thank you! I will try that but the thing is my bowl get dirty after 2 days of water change so I have to keep changing it! I need to get a bigger bowl!


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## Hallyx (Jun 11, 2011)

MyRainbowBettaFish said:


> small bowls cannot cycle


Small bowls _can_ cycle, and will try to if you're not careful. Preventing this is the reason for100% water changes.

Yup. You need to get a bigger bowl. In the meantime, it'll be easier to keep your 1gal clean if you don't have to worry about gunk in the gravel. I run bare-bottom tanks with no gravel. They are very easy yo keep clean. 

I think cupping a fish and removing him is stressful for both the fish and the keeper (unless you train them like Aokashi does). I tried not to do it much even when I had 1gal bowls. Spot-clean with a turkey baster and siphon with a tube (carefully). The gravel vacs from petstores are overkill for anything under 5gal, imo.

Refill water should be tank temperature and should include the full measure of conditioner for your tank even for partial water changes.


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## Hallyx (Jun 11, 2011)

OK...Now I'm off to cycle my 1.5gal shrimp and snail tank ;-}


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## hannguyen (Jul 9, 2012)

Thank you! 

I got a 5 gals bowl but I have no clue how to cycle it!


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## Hallyx (Jun 11, 2011)

Is your fish already setup in the 5gal?


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## hannguyen (Jul 9, 2012)

No he's in a 1 gal bowl right now. My 5 gal tank just sits there. I don't know if I have to do the cycle or not so I haven't put him in there yet. I was thinking using Kordon AmQuel Plus Ammonia Detoxifier along with the water conditioner and change water 25% twice a week for the 5 gal tank if I don't cycle it. Or do I have to?


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## Hallyx (Jun 11, 2011)

Cycling your tank saves you a little work. But, more important, it provides cleaner water for your fish

Thee are two ways to cycle:

Put your fish in the 5gal and do a fish-in cycle which uses the fish as the ammonia source. I won't explain it further because I believe it is not kind to the fish.

Better, in my opinion, is to put your fish in the 5gal and do 2x50% water changes per week to keep the ammonia well below 0.25ppm. You'll need a liquid test kit to keep an eye on things and to monitor the cycle.

First of all, the most important place for the Beneficial Bacteria (thenitrifying bacteria that eats the ammonia) is in the filter. When you cycle a tank, you're really cycling the filter. Gravel, tank walls, decor, plants all help, but the filter does most of the work.

If you have access to filter foam or gravel from a cycled tank, that's a plus. A quarter cup will do. Put it in your filter. The BB in the media will kickstart your cycle. It's OK if you don't have it; it just takes longer --- a lot longer.

You'll need ammonia to feed the BB. Some keepers use raw shrimp or fish food which rots to provide the ammonia. That's smelly, messy and can grow dangerous mold. Find “pure” ammonia that does NOT foam when you shake it.

OK Here we go....

_Setup your filter and heater in your 1gal bowl or even a bucket._

BB like air, food and warmth (don't we all?) so:

---Run an airstone if you can. Or use a sponge filter to accept the cycle

---Run your filter full-blast

---keep it warm, up to 90* is OK

---keep it dark; the BB like that

--- add enough ammonia to get a reading of 3.0/4.0ppm on your test kit. 

Maintain this reading. Monitor your parameters. When the ammonia goes down, the nitrites should go up. It may take weeks or longer. Keep the ammonia at 3.0/4.0ppm. When the nitrItes go down, the nitrAtes should go up. When the ammonia = 0.0ppm and the nitrites = 0.0ppm, you should see a high reading for nitrates (~40ppm is not unusual). 

Then dump out the water and refill it. Don’t let the filter get dry. Bring the ammonia up to 2.0/3.0ppm again. If ammonia, and nitrites both drop to 0.0ppm in less that 24 hours, your filter is cycled.

Place the filter in your show tank with your fish, and monitor it carefully for the first few days. Basically you're running a cycled tank from then on.

I just read this over. It doesn't sound too complicated to me. But, if this is the first time you're seeing all this information in one piece, it might be a little intimidating. Read it slowly again; read other things about cycling. Let me know if this makes sense to you. Ask questions.


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## hannguyen (Jul 9, 2012)

Thank you so much . I don't have anyway that have a cycled tank so I can't borrow anything from them. 
Like you said, would that be okay to put the fish in the 5gal
And do pwc 50% twice a week to keep the ammonia level low? 
Or should I buy ammonia from ace hardware (10% ammonia, i don't know anywhere else sells ammonia) to do the fishless cycle. Im scared of stressing him out. 
By the way, I only have one heater, it's currently in my 1 gal, would that be okay if the water in the 5gal to be cold or should I move it to the 5gal (but then my fish will be cold lol) 

Thank you a lot !!!


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## Hallyx (Jun 11, 2011)

It is more important that your fish be warm. Put the heater in with him in the 5gal. 

Put the filter in the 1gal, turn it up all the way and just keep it as warm as you can and put in the ammnia. The bacteria are all around in the air. Leave your tank open so they fall in. They will eventually. Cover it when it starts to cycle (when the ammonia starts to go down).

Ace hardware 10% Janitorial ammonia is the best. Get it.


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## hannguyen (Jul 9, 2012)

Alrighty! Thank you very much! Hopefully It won't take forever since I don't want my fishie to stuck in the 1gal forever


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## Hallyx (Jun 11, 2011)

hannguyen said:


> Alrighty! Thank you very much! Hopefully It won't take forever since I don't want my fishie to stuck in the 1gal forever


Han, buddy, listen carefully!

*Put the fish in the 5gal with the heater.* Put in your plabts and decorations. Do a 50% water change twice a week in the 5gal.

The idea is to cycle the filter in the 1gal. It doesn't matter how long it takes. When it's done, you put the cycled filter into the 5gal.

Write back and tell me that you understand this. OK?


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## hannguyen (Jul 9, 2012)

Gotcha ;-) thanks !


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