Caring for your betta
Siamese fighting fish (Betta
Splendens)
Container (aquarium)-
The bigger the better is always a good rule when it comes to keeping any type of fish. The bigger the container/aquarium the less you have to mess and the better the fish will feel (remember the fish lives in its own toilet). If you have ever been to your local fish store (LFS) then you know that bettas can be kept in small containers. I DO NOT recommend keeping bettas that way and feel that it is torture for them to have to be confined to such a container. I recommend keeping bettas in 1 gallon or larger containers/aquariums.
I have learned over the years of keeping bettas that they each have their own personalities. Some are just fine being kept in a community tank with other fish and some just hate it and will either hide all the time or fight the other fish. One fish I have learned that bettas cannot be kept with are Three-spot (Blue) Gouramis, but other people say that they have done this. My experience has been that the Gouramis are too aggressive and territorial.
Another way of keeping these fish is by buying a container that hangs onto the side of your aquarium. Make sure that the container you use has holes in it so that the feces will float out of the container and fresh water can flow in and out.
Any size aquarium you choose needs to have a cover. Bettas are jumpers and can jump pretty high (I have seen this for myself). Bettas also breathe air so make sure your cover is not airtight. For this reason I like to use and recommend using net covers like those used for reptiles.
Food-
Bettas are carnivores meaning they eat meat. Live foods are the best food for bettas, but can be a chore to take care of and maintain. You can buy live food for your fish from your LFS, but some LFS don’t sell a variety of live food or some don’t sell live food at all. Frozen foods are best for fish but can pollute the water faster. Freeze-dried foods are easy to feed, but are not as nutritious as frozen. Pellets are the easiest food to feed your fish and if feed properly will not pollute the water.
I recommend Hikari brand frozen food since they go through a strict decontamination process. Types of frozen foods include bloodworms, daphnia, and adult brine shrimp. I do not recommend frozen Tubifex worms since I have heard that if not properly taken care of can give you some sort of disease. I have a recipe for beef heart, but have heard that if you are to feed it to your bettas you will need to do a total water change afterward due to the fact that this food can spoil your water quickly.
As for freeze-dried foods I use Tubifex worms, and blood worms. I feel better about feeding freeze-dried Tubifex worms over frozen since they tend to be sterilized and less harmful.
Hikari betta bio-gold is one of the commercial pellet foods that I feed my bettas. I have been told that you can use Hikari cichlid baby bio-gold can be substituted for the betta formula since it tends to be less expensive.
I now use lots of live foods and have gotten most of mine from The Bug Farm. I highly recommend investing in live foods. They are not as hard as everyone claims they are to maintain and culture.
Maintenance-
Depending on the size of the
aquarium you choose will depend on what kind of schedule you will go by for
water changes. For 1-gallon containers
I recommend doing a total water change once a week. Any container bigger than this can go longer between water
changes. I change the water in my 55
gallon tank once a month and I only do partial water changes on that size
tank.
Before doing a total water change I like to have
same temperature, aged water set aside to replace the old water with. I use clean empty gallon milk jugs to do
this with. To do a total water change I
take a small container (rinsed out well since any soap residue may harm your
fish) fill it with the water from the aquarium and then take a net and scoop
out the betta from the aquarium into the small holding container. Bettas are jumpy fish so be very careful not
to drop your fish. While the betta is
contained I drain all the water out of the aquarium using a gravel siphon into
a bucket or into an empty gallon milk jug.
After I do this I take paper towels to wipe down the sides or I use a
kitchen bottle brush (that has never been used to wash bottles) to scrub off
the stubborn gunk. After doing all that
I take the aged water and dump it into the tank filling the tank all the
way. I check to make sure the
temperature is the same as the old water and them net the betta and place him
into his/hers nice clean home.
I now bleach my beanie baby boxes when not in use to
keep bacteria from spreading. I take a
squirt bottle full of bleach and fill each box with hot water. I then squirt one squirt into the box and
let this stand overnight. I then rinse
and rinse and rinse the box in the morning.
After that I fill the box with clean hot water and add a drop of
dechlorinator to each box and let this set until the next day. Then I rinse and rinse and smell. If I smell bleach I will fill up and add
dechlorinator and set, if not I will use the bottle brush to scrub insides and
dry. These will be set-aside until time
to use.
Optional Accessories-
Gravel-
This is usually for looks only and can hide gunk from view.
Plants-
Fake plants are for visual pleasure, but live plants can be helpful in keeping the water clean. I recommend buying Java Fern or Java Moss if you are going to buy live plants due to the low light levels needed to grow these plants.
Submersible heater-
Bettas are tropical fish and do like their water to be above 70 degrees Fahrenheit and under 80 degrees Fahrenheit.
Filter-
For aquariums bigger than 1 gallon you can place a sponge filter or box filter into them to keep the water clean. If you have a filter take it apart and clean it good once a month. Sponge filters just need to be rinsed out once a month. You will need to get an air pump if you get a sponge or box filter to run them. And just remember you get what you pay for so the cheapest air pump may not be in your best interest since they can be really noisy.
Light-
It is nice to have a light bulb on top of your tank for viewing pleasure. Just remember that the light on top of the tank is like our sun on top of us. It heats up our world and can heat up theirs also. It also needs to be turned off at night (you would not like it if our sun was shining 24 hrs would you?). Fish do sleep and having a light on above them at all times doesn’t help. If you keep the tank in a room with lots of sun you may not need a light. But I do not recommend keeping a tank in a window since the sun can also promote the growth of algae and the draft from the window can affect the temperature of the tank.
Stand-
Picking out a place for your aquarium is not as hard as it seems. You have the choice of buying a stand from the LFS or making your own. One rule to remember is one gallon of water weighs 8 lbs. So if you are going to make a stand make sure that it can hold the weight of the tank, water, and accessories. The stand should also be well protected from water damage. I place towels underneath my tanks if I do not want water to get onto its stand. Place the stand near an electrical outlet so that you can hook up all of your accessories.
6-way extension cord-
This is needed if you decide to get all of the accessories above. This way you can plug everything into one outlet. Make sure that you place the cord in an area where water cannot reach it in case of a spill.