Betta Care: Cup Sickness

First, I'm going to soapbox for a minute here.
My personal rule is that I'll never buy a sick betta fish from a store unless they give me a discount on the fish. I'll also never buy a fish that I know will die. 
This sort of comes from where I used to work, when I was keeper of the betta. 
Basically, stores understand money more than they understand morality. When you're buying something at full price, you're telling the store, "Yes, I like what you're doing, keep doing this," and telling them that sick fish will still sell. When you ask for a discount you're telling the store that the fish is not worth as much when it is sick. Stores do not want product that can only be sold at a discount
Buying a fish that you know is going to die is removing the responsibility of looking at the dead fish and disposing of the body from the store. Knowing that a fish died and looking at a dead fish are two different things. 
This means that if a store won't give me a discount on a sick fish, I have to walk away. I have to leave that fish. It is not easy. It's never easy. But it has to be done, to teach the stores that their fish need to be taken care of. 
I'm trying to find the video of Steve Irwin, the Crocodile Hunter, talking about buying illegal animals at a market. He's filming this video at a market in some country where people have taken wild animals, put them in tiny cages, and are selling them as novelties or pets or for their fur (I don't remember why). You can watch Steve's heart break as he's explaining that he has room for them at his zoo and he has enough money to buy all of them and give them a home, but for every animal he buys, another one is caught and put in its place in the market. I know that Steve Irwin loved animals more than I am capable of loving anything, and if he could walk away from those animals, I can walk away from a betta at Petco.

This doesn't mean that you should only buy betta fish in perfect health. A little fin rot or a little skinniness is normal from a fish that's been living in 1/18th of a gallon for more than a couple weeks. It does mean, however, that you should consider the quality of life of all the fish in the store before you buy an extremely sick fish.
Soapbox done.

I'm going to call this Cup Sickness. A lot of fish who stay on the shelves at the store, or who live in enclosures too small (LOOKIN' AT YOU, BETTA CUBES, FUCK YOU, BETTA CUBES) get this combination of problems.
~They lose the ability to control how they float. This usually means they're stuck on their sides at the surface of the water, but sometimes means they can't float and are stuck at the floor of their cups. Losing their ability to control their floating is called swim bladder disease, or SBD
~They become either extremely skinny or seriously overweight (or both, which, yes, is possible). A betta's weight is easiest to see when viewed directly from above.
~They often have very poor muscle tone, from not being able to swim in a straight line
~They are often constipated, and may have a swollen tummy.

Important note:

 Cup Sickness

 Cup Sickness

 Cup Sickness

 Cup Sickness

BUT THIS 

IS NOT CUP SICKNESS

This is called Mystery Bloat or Malwai Bloat. This fish was not having trouble floating or sinking. He's severely swollen in all directions, like he swallowed a marble. His scales are sticking up. This is not cup sickness. Mystery/Malwai bloat is contagious and fatal for betta fish. Do not bring a fish with this sickness into your house.

Back to Cup Sickness
There's four main things that can cause these symptoms. At least three of these causes are usually present in cases of cup sickness.
1) High Ammonia Levels: Betta fish have a very high tolerance for ammonia. They can stay alive in cups with 32ppm of ammonia or higher in them. 1ppm of ammonia is considered the lethal level for ornamental fish, because living in 1ppm of ammonia for 4 days kills 50% of fish. Betta fish can stay alive in higher levels of ammonia, but they do start getting physical damage from it. Living in 4ppm of ammonia is just living in and breathing poison.
2) Small, Cold Living Space: If their bowl is a size of shape where they can't even swim their body length in a straight line, they are going to develop weird muscles. If there's no stimulation in their bowl, they're going to get bored and sit on the bottom. Cold water also makes them sleepy, contributing to cold. Water that is too cold also makes it harder for their digestive system to work properly. The combination of these things means that many fish get seriously overweight, and if they stay in the cup for longer they start losing all their muscles. They become extremely thin and very small.
3) Awful Food: Most betta foods on the market are just kind of crap. Betta fish cannot digest plant matter at all, but a lot of betta foods have grains in them as binders or fillers. Constantly needing to crap out over half the food they eat, combined with the fact that they can't move enough (moving aids in digestion) is just a recipe for serious constipation.
4) Damaged Slime Coat: Betta fish have a mucus-like coating on them, which their bodies make to protect them from physical damage and illnesses. Their slime coat can be damaged if they're sick, but it can also be damaged when they move or are touched too roughly. A lot of store carrying betta in cups don't have the time or skill to make sure the fish are not stressed or roughly handled every time the water in the cups is changed. Children of shoppers like to pick up fish cups and shake them (AND IF I CATCH YOUR KIDS DOING THAT I WILL GIVE YOU A PIECE OF MY MIND) This means that even if the cups are changed two or three times a week to keep the ammonia levels lower, the fish are still being damaged.

Usually, Cup Sickness is caused by 1, 2, and 3, with an occasional appearance by 4. So, your fish has cup sickness, or you bought a fish with cup sickness, or your friend was going to get rid of their fish because it started swimming sideways...whatever it is, you have a sick fish on your hands.

A lot of people are going to tell you that you need to feed a pea to the fish and they'll be fine, bathe them in Epsom salts, blah, blah.

Adding aquarium salt to the water of a bloated fish will make the bloating worse. Throwing that out there.

So, let's go over the basics of treating a sick fish really fast:
First of all, betta fish are small and the wrong treatment can take a very serious toll on their bodies. You don't want to give a fish antibiotics if you're not 100% sure they need them, because they can stress the poor fish's kidneys. A bath in Epsom salts can also stress out their kidneys and their respiratory system, which will already be damaged if they are living in a high-ammonia environment. You don't want to put anything in their digestive tract that can damage it unless you know it is necessary. Unless you are very sure than the betta's condition is rapidly deteriorating, you want to use the smallest and least damaging treatments possible, working your way up until you find the most gentle treatment that works.

 So, the first thing that causes cup sickness is ammonia levels, and the first treatment is to get them out of high ammonia water. This means getting them into a larger tank or tub.

This is how most of my hospital tanks for sick fish look. The plastic is easy to clean, and cheap enough that if a fish had something really contagious I can just never use it for fish again. Having no substrate makes it easier to monitor a fish's digestion (counting the poops). They have something in the tank that they can use for hiding and to not feel so exposed. They have heaters keeping the water at 75-83. Both of these tubs have about 3 gallons of water in them, and no filters.
Unless you have a filter already cycled* that has a very low output, I don't filter hospital tanks for cup sickness. When the fish is trapped at the surface, small bubbles will move them constantly.

Getting them into ammonia-free water is the first step. The next step is to make sure that their water is a good temperature. Get a heater that you can control the heat on, and that has an internal thermostat. Set it to the higher range of their acceptable water levels (I like 80).
Instead of putting 80 degree water in the tank, I try to match the temperature of the cup the fish is in. I then add the fish before I turn the heater on. This changes the temperature of their water much more slowly.

So, they're in ammonia-free water that is heated, and at least three times as long as the fish's body so they can swim. What now?
Now you just wait. Unless you /know/ the fish has not eaten in the past week, don't feed him. Don't put peas in there, don't bathe him or add salt or anything. Put him in good, clean water, heat it to the right temperature, and let him be for a day. Keep checking on him, make sure he's not panting or deteriorating, but just give him space and clean water and give that a chance to do its thing.
In some more mild cases, enough water is all you need.

This is Cinco. Cinco had been in a cup at work, stuck on the bottom and unable to reach the surface without fighting, for five months. Where his swim bladder was, the side of his body had caved in. I thought he had a birth defect and that he would never be able to swim. 

Brought him home and put him in a bowl I'd carefully built to accommodate a betta who can't float. Went to sleep, woke up, and he could swim fine. He's still very sensitive to water currents and ammonia levels, but for the majority of the time he swims like a normal fish. 

Sometimes, though, water isn't all you need.
Once the fish has been in his new water for about twelve hours, it's time to feed him. Make sure that what you're feeding is good quality food. He's probably got all sorts of weird shit in his digestive tract from eating whatever Hikari shit the store's feeding him. I like to limit it to one or two pebbles (I feed Omega One, which has larger pebbles) and no more. Then it's a matter of waiting and counting if he poops.
This is why it's a good idea to not have gravel.
If it's been 24 hours and your fishy hasn't pooped, it's time to feed him something with fiber. A lot of people suggest a pea. Peas are entirely plant-based, so the betta cannot digest any of it. In theory, when he shits that fucker out, it'll take out anything else in his digestive system that might be blocking it.
To feed him a pea, take a frozen pea and microwave it for about 10 seconds. Then use your fingernail to pull off a section about the same size as a food pebble, and drop it in the tank. If your fish is aggressive, desperate, or kind of dumb, he might go right for it.

If you just can't get him to eat a pea (can you blame him?) go to the pet store and get frozen daphnia or frozen mysis shrimp.
Both of these are things a betta might naturally want to eat. Daphnia have a natural laxative effect and mysis shrimp have an exoskeleton that's all fiber. They're also much easier to feed than tricking him into eating a pea.

If you're on day three and the swelling just will not go down, then you can try to give him an epsom salt bath. I pull half a gallon of their tank water out into a pitcher, add two teaspoons of epsom salt and dissolve it.  Then I transfer the fish into the pitcher and watch him like mad for ten minutes. If he starts panting or panicking, I immediately transfer him back. If he stays calm for all ten minutes, I transfer him back to his tank, and then add half a gallon of fresh water into his tank to replace what I pulled out of the tank.

Honestly, this has never failed me. In some cases it's taken weeks, weeks on constant ammonia checks and water changes and baths and poop counting, but all of my cup sickness rescues are now better and normal fish.

And it's worth it.

_____
*We haven't talked about cycling yet, but we will

Betta Care: Let's talk decor

Decor is all the stuff in your tank that's not water or your fish.

You have decor for two reasons: 1) To make the tank pretty and something you like having in your house, 2) To replicate the natural environment of your fish.

This means you have three things to keep in mind when you're decorating (aquascaping) your tank: 1) Will it make my betta feel safe, 2) Do I like how it looks, and 3) Will it hurt my fish?

Pshaw, Polly, I'm not just sticking random shit in my tank. I got it from the pet store! I don't need to worry about if it'll hurt my fish. 

Bad news, Italicized Strawman.  A lot of decor you can get at the pet store will hurt your fish. Some stores sell cheap (or overpriced) decor that has paint that'll flake off into the water. Also, betta fish have very delicate fins. Sharp or rough decor can rip right through them.

This is just the stuff that's not currently being used

Luckily, I have a lot of decor hanging around, so I can talk about the good and the bad.

The sand, gravel, or stones you put on the bottom of your tank is called substrate. There's several different kinds, all with good and bad sides.

I like gravel. It comes in a lot of colors, it's cheap, I find it easy to clean, and it's reusable. It's the only substrate you can use with an undergravel filter. I suggest getting about 1 pound a gallon for your tank (though this depends on the shape of the tank).
Some people don't like gravel because it requires a more thorough vacuuming than sand does. You can't grow live plants in gravel, and it's dangerous for bottom feeders like catfish to be on. (side note, don't put gravel in your goldfish tank. They try to eat it and frequently choke).

The cup on the right in the above picture has glass stones. Large acrylic or glass stones are great for unfiltered tanks. They're easy to dump out, rinse off, and put back in the bowl. You don't need to worry about them going down your sink like you have to worry about gravel.

Some people use very large stones, 3"+, in their aquariums. This works really well for goldfish, but betta will try to swim through any little hole, and can get caught. If you use large stones, make sure they are smooth and that there are no spaces a fish could get stuck.

2.5gal tank with sand

Sand is another popular substrate. You can buy a bag of play sand at the hardware store for $4 for 20 pounds, which will be enough for most tanks.
When you're buying sand, make sure you're not getting marine sand. Marine sand has salt in it and isn't good for betta tanks. Play sand and pool filter sand both work for fish.
Sand is difficult to remove, and if you frequently rescape your tanks it is also very difficult to clean up and move. It's easier to bury plants in. You can't use it with a buried heater and you can't use it with an undergravel filter. It doesn't come in any fun colors.
Some people have an easier time cleaning sand than gravel, or feel they do a more thorough job cleaning it. A lot of people like that it's more natural looking. People who have tanks with live plants like sand for planting in it.

You can also choose to have no substrate and just have a bare tank floor. I like this because it makes it easy to tell if the tank is clean and very easy to vacuum, but it's harder to add more water without the decor sliding around.

It's also important to remember that if you're going to divide a tank, you need at least an inch of substrate to bury the bottom of the divider.

Now, other stuff!

I suggest that every betta enclosure has some kind of cave. A cave is anything a fish can swim into and hide. You can buy cool ones that look like pirate ships or skulls, or you can use a mug or teacup or terra cotta flowerpot turned on its side (no metallic decorations, though, as those can be toxic).

I call these guys ornaments. They're hard decor that isn't meant to look like plants. When Twister had the triangular arch in his tank, he liked swimming through it. It's possible to put an airstone under the lighthouse and have bubbles come out the window, which is pretty cool looking.

DON'T TOUCH MY LEEF!!!!!

Here's some betta-specific decor. The left is a betta log, and the right are betta leaf hammocks. If you have an older fish or a fish you've noticed sleeping on other things in the tank, it can be nice to give them a leaf that's meant specifically for sleeping on, or a log for sleeping in. Currently, none of my tanks have betta leafs or betta logs.

Before we go on, there's two types of bases for plant decoration. Bottom left is my favorite, the weighted base. You can bury the end in gravel or sand, or have it just sit on the floor of the tank. I like these because if I accidentally unbury one, it doesn't float to the roof of the tank.
The top and bottom right ones have cups in the bottom that you have to bury to make it stay down. If you have sand, these stay better than if you have gravel. They do not work at all for bare tanks.

Now, on to plants:

Silk plants (which are made from fabric, but not necessarily silk) are my favorite for betta fish. They are soft and don't scratch delicate fins, and a lot of them have big leaves to sleep on.

Here's some soft plastic plants. They don't have sharp edges. Even though some of them are made of hard plastic, they don't have bits that are easy to catch a fin on.
If you want to test if a plant is good for your betta tank, put on some tights and rub the plant on your thigh (or pretend you did). If it snags your pantyhose, it's too sharp.

And here's the sharp plants that I suggest you avoid. If you grab one of these in your hand and squeeze, you can feel it digging into your hand.

When you're actually scapeing your tank, put short plants at the front and tall plants at the back. Petsmart sells these filler carpets that are great for cutting up and adding little decorations. That's what that front piece is. Here Casper's got a clay pot for a cave.

Mr Tipsy's cave is wider than his apartment, and has to be at an angle. Again, note the tall plants in the back and short in the front. This isn't for any health reason, it's just nicer looking in general.

Bo's got a lovely piece of driftwood that I made sure was smooth before I put it in the tank. For the first few months, the driftwood turned the water brown and I had to use carbon in my filter to keep the color away. Now, however, it's done leaching tannin and just looks pretty. Driftwood can help lower your PH, and the tannins they stain the water with don't hurt your fish.

And here's Twister's dragon. The dragon has an airstone in it to let it breathe bubbles, but I disabled it because Twister already had the UGF lift tube putting bubbles into his tank. Twister doesn't have a cave, and instead has a very dense group of tall and short plants in the back of his space. This is because when he had a cave, he'd still hide in the plants if he was scared, so it seemed better to replace the cave with more plants.

Well, that's more than anyone ever needed to know about fish tank decorations. Have fun, folks.

Betta Care: A tank divided

In the last post that I wrote six minutes ago, I covered two things: you cannot (in general) keep betta fish together, and you have to be very careful when keeping betta fish with other fish.

So what if you want nine betta fish but you don't want to change nine tanks, and buy nine filters and nine heaters.

Some people really hate split tanks, but I love them.

The dangers of split tanks: fish getting around or over the dividers and hurting each other, diseases traveling through shared water, betta seeing each other and being constantly stressed.

The advantages of split tanks: fewer filters, fewer heaters, fewer water changes, fewer lights. Easier to keep parameters stable for several fish, fewer water tests, less space. A larger water quantity makes waste build up more slowly.

So, first of all, what's a good divided tank?

Here's a hint, it's not this thing.

A divided tank is a tank that has a barrier in it to keep the fish apart. The fish all live in the same tank, and that tank only requires the maintenance of one tank, but can have more than one living space in it.  

10 gallon tank, divided to have two living spaces and a small space in the middle.

There are two dangers that you find in divided tanks that you don't find in solo tanks. The first is that if your betta fish somehow gets around or over the divider, there's a good chance that he'll kill his tank-mate. The other concern is that if one fish in a divided tank gets sick, every fish gets exposed to it. Instead of losing one fish, you can lose several. If one heater fails, all your fish will be too cold. You're putting all your eggs in one basket.
Both of these are 100% avoidable, however. Proper quarantining is an important part of any shared tank. Quarantining means you keep the new fish in his own tank for ~30 days, to make sure he doesn't have any disease that could spread. Proper care for a community tank means not putting in any fish you know is sick, or you know was exposed to a disease.

You can keep bettas on their side of their dividers by building the dividers properly. The dividers you see at the pet store don't work for betta fish. Those dividers are built for fish who don't have the biological desire to murder everything they see. The good news is that you can easily build the kind of divider that does work for betta fish, and they're cheaper than the ones at the pet store. 

A 20 gallon long tank divided 4-ways

First, you need to think about how big of a tank you want. I recommend having at least 4 gallons of water per fish. This is based on the total water volume. The tank might be divided, but they'll all be breathing the same water, so you need to have enough of that. The other concern is space. Take a very critical look at the size that each apartment will be when it's divided. It needs to be deep enough, wide enough, and tall enough. For this reason I say that a 20-long tank can be divided into four, but a 20-high tank should only be divided into two.
Also you need to take into account your fish. If you have a big guy, he might not be comfortable in 1/4 of a 20-long, but other fish will have plenty of space. If you have a very aggressive fish that will spend hours trying to attack the shadow on the other side of the divider, he might not be happy in a divided tank. Just because a stranger on the internet said it'd be okay for most fish doesn't mean it'll be good for every fish.
 

I make mine out of plastic needlepoint canvas, the spines to report covers, and a shitload of aquarium silicone. You cut the canvas to the shape you need, put two or three layers together. Then you snap one report spine on the top, and silicone two more spines into the tank. Then you slide the canvas into the spines, and cover the bottom of the divider with gravel or sand. There's tutorials out there that go over this exact process.

Center two apartments of the divided 20. The left and right walls are needlepoint canvas dividers

Using silicone to attach the dividers to the walls of the tank is very important. Betta are crafty little fuckers and they can find their way through the gaps in the wall. It's very important that you also use aquarium silicone. The bottle just saying 100% silicone isn't good enough. Go to the hardware store, find an employee, and ask for aquarium-safe silicone. Then make sure it says "aquarium safe" on the packaging. If they don't have it, buy it online. A lot of silicones that you can find in the hardware store have anitfungal additives that will kill your fish. This is a case where buying the wrong product will kill your fish, so be careful.

If there won't be a lot of jump space when your tank hood is closed, you only need one divider. If there will be a lot of space, you can use two dividers with a little space to catch an angry jumper.

Divided 10 with a thermometer in the jump space

If you have a jump space, you can keep your heater or your HOB intake in the jump space, to leave you with more space in the living space.

If you want to temporarily un-divide your tank, you can slide the needlepoint canvas out and leave the spines glued in. This will let you re-divide it without having to drain the tank and glue in new spines. If you decide that you want to un-divide it long term, you can remove the silicone cleanly with a razor. 

As a final note, I've been told that you should not keep a male and female betta in a divided tank, because being close to each other will keep them constantly ready to breed and stress them out. I have never tested this, but if you are interested in keeping a boy and a girl in the same divided tank, this is something you should research first.



And remember that a healthy fish is prettier than the prettiest tank in the world!

Betta Care: Community Tanks

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.

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.

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

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.