OntarioBetta

What would you like to learn about?

• Foods
• Housing
• Water
• Disease

Protein: Protein is super important for good growth and health in fish. Carnivors, like bettas, should have at least 45% in their diets. For younger fish, they should get at least 50% for good growth.

Fat: Fish don't need a lot of fat,  no more than 8%. Too much fat can cause liver damage and lead to early death.

Fiber: Carnivors don't need a lot of fiber, no more then 4%. This is because they are not able to digest it very well at all.

Carbohydrates: Don't need a lot, because it6 can be harmfull over time. Adults can take 40% in their diet without bad effects.

Minerals: Important for bones, teeth and scales. The important ones are calcium and phosphorus (see having hard water has some benefits). They also need a bit of iron, magnesium, potassium, zinc, and sodium.

Vitamins: Vitamins are needed to keep good heath. The main ones are A, D3, E, K, B1, B2, B3, B5, B6, B12, C, H, M. A lot of different kinds of fish food has vitamins, but they deteriorate quickly, so only buy what you will use in a few months.

Food types:

Bettas are carnivors, therefore they eat meat. There is a wide variety of foods out there that are good for bettas. Bettas, like all fish, need a variety of foods in order to meet their nutritional requirements- and also eating the same food day after day just gets boring. Frozen and live foods are the best for bettas, dry foods are also good. Other then water quality, foods are the 2nd most important thing to keeping bettas healthy. Make sure you select good quality foods to feed, keep in mind the %ages from above! 

Frozen foods:
-Frozen foods are things that were once alive but now are not. They arn't as good as live foods, but they are 2nd best. There is a large variety of frozen foods out there. Try to get ones that have added vitamins, like from Hikari. Heres the main ones that bettas like:
*protein levels may seem very low, but you need to look at the % of dry matter which is much much higher*

• Mosquito larva
• brine shrimp
• Bloodworms
• beefheart
• daphnia
• mysis shrimp
• tubifex worms

Bettas are Labryinth fish, meaning they get their oxygen from the surface, so they can survive in spaces that would be too small for regular fish. Which is why you see them in tiny cups in the pet stores. And there is a reason why they are called Siamese Fighting Fish, its because they will fight each other! So don't keep them together!

BUT beleive it or not bettas actually hate living in tiny spaces!! So Dont keep your betta in anything smaller then a liter of water. Just because they can survive in it doesn't mean they will thrive! Plus a small tank will get dirty fast, meaning you will need to be doing lots of water changes. And if you don't then your betta will get sick and probably die. This is because ammonia (which fish produce through their poop and other things) is very toxic to fish. So when you have a small tank with no filter and not a lot of water, ammonia builds up very quickly. So, big tank= better.

In the wild bettas live in rice paddies, NOT puddles! Rice paddies cover acres and are 1000s of gallons of water. So don't beleive it when the people at the pet store tell you they live in puddles! Yes, they may live in small spaces of the paddies, but there is still lots of fresh water around.

Keeping a single male or female:

So because of thier 'breathing' ability bettas can live in almost anything. A big tank, like 5gal (if u are keeping just for a pet), is best though. Because smaller tanks get dirty faster and you will need to be doing water changes all the time. You should still do a water change once a week with a 5gal anyway. 

You can also add a filter to the tank, but its not really a must. Just make sure there isn't a lot of current, bettas don't like that. The filter depends on the tank size. So if you have a little tank you should get one of those little corner filters or sponge filters with the air pumps. If you have a bigger tank you can get bigger filter. Just make sure there isn't a lot of current. Bettas don't like current, its hard for them to swim in.

The temperature should be anywhere from 74-82 degrees. This why big tanks are best,  you can put a heater in them. You can also get heaters for smaller tanks, like 25watt ones.

Bettas also like plants in their tanks, live or fake. It just gives them something to hang around and chill on, or hid under. It just makes things intresting. Plus it makes it pretty.

Keeping Several Males:

  So usually after people get one betta, they get like 3 more. And its hard to find space for a bunch of 5gal tanks, and it can also be expensive. So there are a few ways to keep several bettas, the most common being using smaller tanks or using divided tanks.

When useing smaller tanks just remember that they get dirty faster, and when they get dirty harmfull ammonia and whatnot will build up and hurt your fishie. So remember to do lots of water changes. There are lots of different kinds of tanks to keep bettas in, pretty much anything that can hold water. So get creative! Or you can just buy a goldfish bowl or whatever. Just remember that a small tank should be treated the same as a larger tank! If the tank is too small for a heater then keep them somewhere warm in the house that has a steady temp.

Another way is to keep them in divided tanks. The easiest way is to go to a craft store and get some plastic canvas (is like a sheet of plastic with little square holes in it). Just fit that into the tank, or you can glue it in with aquarium silicone. You can divide any tank into how ever many spaces you want. I would say 3 for a 5gal and 5 for a 10gal. To learn how to do this look up DIY Dividers in the Articles section.

Keeping Several Females:

Females are a bit different then males. They are a little less aggressive and most can be kept together, MOST. If you do get females, make sure you get more then 2. Or else they will always be beating eachother up. If there is more then the aggression gets spread around so not one is just getting beat. In a 10gal keeping 5-6 females would work well. Usually the longer they are together the less they will fight. But some females are really aggressive and are best kept by themselves. A heavily planted tank is best for several females. 10gal is the minimum I would recomend for keeping a group of females.

Keeping males and females in the same tank:

This isn't such a great idea. They are 'fighting fish' remember? Males and females will fish just the same. Ususally the females will gang up on the male and kill him. Or the strongest female will kill the others so that she can breed with the male. Bettas need a lot of space, the only time they are really together is to breed. So thats why this isn't such a great thing.

Keeping bettas in a community tank:

Yes bettas can be kept in community tanks. They only fight with themselves, not generally other fish, and are quite peaceful. You can keep them with other small peacefull fish such as platies, cories, white clouds, some tetras, some danios, rasboras, ect ect.
You should not keep them with other labyrinth fish (gouramis and Paradise fish), male guppies (cus they resemble male bettas with the long tails), fast, aggressive large fish, or nippy fish. If you have a small tank than some good tanks mates would be a snail, ghost shrimp, dwarf frogs, ect..

Bettas, as well as other fish, need to have certain water conditions in order keep them happy and stress free. So for bettas they should be kept at a pH of 6.5-7.8, at a temp of 74-82, and in relitivaly soft water. But being the tuff fish they are, they can tolerate levels outside of the ideal. You can use water right from your tap, but you will need to buy dechloronator to get rid of the chlorine and other bad stuff. I use Prime by Seachem. Don't worry about adjusting your tap water levels, its a loosing battle. Just go with what you got. Unless of course what you have is really bad. Then there are ways of fixing it. Such as using Reverse Osmosis or Deionized water. Store bought products are a hit and miss. Some will work, some wont. It depends on your water.

Water changes should be done at least once a week. If you have a smaller tank, like 1gal, then changes should be done more then once a week. Bettas can be messy, and when u have leftover food and poop in a small amout of water it can cause problems really fast.

Now, all tanks need to be cycled. That means they need to build up benificial bacteria. This bacteria is a good thing. What it does is it takes the ammonia produced by your fish and turns it into Nitrite. However, Nitrite is also a bad thing, so then the bacteria turns it into Nitrate, which is only harmfull in certain amounts. So in order to get rid of the Nitrate you must do water changes.

But when a new tank is set up, it has no bacteria. So when you add a bunch of fish there is nothing to convert their ammonia, so they end up dying. So in order to prevent this you must add fish very slowly or use the fishless way. If you are going to use fish to cycle then you should only use one fish. I really don't like using fish to cycle because it ends up hurting them so I'm not going to talk more about this.

To cycle a tank without fish is a much better way. The easiest thing to do is to just get a filter/filter media or some gravel from an established tank and put in the new tank. By doing this you are taking some bacteria colonies from one tank and putting them into the other. And then your tank is ready for a few fish. You should still add them slow tho, because you wont have enough to handle too many fish from the start. The next thing to do is to just use pure ammonia. For more on this you should read this page http://www.algone.com/fishless_cycling.htm

Now with bettas kept in jar or small tanks (like 2gals) you don;t need to worry about cycling them. This is because you will (or you should!) be doing water changes every couple days so the levels don't have a chance to rise. If you start to skip changes then you will be in trouble!!

Water for changes should be aged. That means a day or 2 before your water change you should prepare the water. Add the dechlorinators, salts, ect ect. That way it gives the declorinator time to work. If you add it all at once at the time of the change it is very stressfull and harmfull to the fish. This is because there is still chlorine in the water, and it burns the fishie.

If you have several tanks then its easier to just keep a big bin/tub of water. I use a 45gal rubbermaid tub to age all my water for the tanks. That way I always have water ready.