Whether you own one pet Betta or a thousand Bettas, water quality is the single most important factor to keep your Betta(s) healthy. It needs to be kept clean at all times and prepared properly to ensure that your fish will be happy and healthy.
Most
people these days receive tap water that has been treated with both chlorine and chloramines. I have read on many websites that
you can simply "age" your water (let it sit out overnight) to allow chlorine, which is highly evaporative, to dissipate. However,
chloramines DO NOT evaporate, so most people will need to use a commercially prepared water conditioner. These products instantly
remove all chemicals from your water, making it safe for fish. I personally recommend ClorAm-X made by AquaScience. It
costs about the same as the other water conditioners, however, it treats much more water. Other products I have used in the
past successfully are Novaqua and Amquel. Some products remove the chemicals, supposedly help your fish replace its slime coat,
and a host of other things. It is a marketing technique (more is better, right?), and it is unnecessary to do 50 things to your
water at once. I would even venture to say that it is better for your fish to stick to the simple products.
If you receive
well water, you may or may not have to make adjustments. Some people receive excellent water from their wells, while others
get nasty, hard water with heavy mineral content. It all depends on where you're at and how much stuff your water is picking
up in the ground and well before it reaches your house. The good news is that it is free of chlorine and chloramines. That being said, it is still imperative that you test well water for ammonia. I tested my parents' well water for them and was
disgusted to see the ammonia come in at 2ppm (a level deadly to Bettas).
For extremely hard water, I recommend using a
water softener. It isn't cheap to set up, but it will save you many headaches in the long run. It will also soften the
water that you bathe in and wash your clothes in, which is an added bonus. Many people will claim that there are adverse effects
to using water from a water softener on Bettas, but that is because they have been misinformed. Water that has been cycled through
a water softener is 100% safe for your Betta Splendens as long as you add some trace elements back in. This can be accomplished
by adding R/O Right at a rate of ˝ teaspoon per 5 gallons of water. Another option for treating hard water for fish is a Reverse
Osmosis (R/O) unit. R/O units are not cheap, but if you are going to be breeding Bettas in really hard water and do not plan
on using a water softener, it is a wise investment. You can either using straight R/O water (with R/O Right added to it), or
you can mix it 50/50 with your tap water. Don't ever use straight R/O water that has not had anything added back into it!
Whatever you do, do not use distilled water on your Bettas! Distilled water does not contain necessary electrolytes and
minerals that your fish need to survive. You can mix it with tap water to make slight adjustments, but don't overdo it.
Whenever you do a water change, you want to make sure that the water you are adding is the same temperature as the water you are replacing. Bettas can be sensitive to temperature changes, especially when stressed or diseased. The best way to do this is to let the new water sit next to your Betta for several hours or overnight. This isn't always possible if you have hundreds of jars or several tanks to clean though. From what I have heard and experienced, a few degrees difference for an adult Betta doesn't seem to have any adverse effects. It is best to just get it as close as possible to be on the safe side.
There are several water parameters that can be tested for your Bettas, but I am just going to cover the most important ones for Bettas
here. For a more thorough article on water parameters, please go to this link.
The first three are ammonia, nitrites, and
nitrates. There isn’t much to say about these except that you want to keep these all at zero. Any of them can be deadly
to Bettas, even in small quantities. Ammonia becomes absolutely toxic at a very low level. If you get a reading above
zero for any of these, immediately change water to get the levels back down to zero.
pH is an indication of how acidic or alkaline
your water is. A pH of 7 is considered neutral. pH below 7 is considered acidic, while pH above 7 is considered alkaline. Anything between a pH of 6 and 8 should be safe for Bettas as long as it is kept constant. If you are replacing water with water
of a different pH, do it slowly. Bettas easily go into pH shock.
GH or general hardness, is the amount of metal ion concentration
in your water. Ideally, you would like to keep this under 140ppm, which is the high-end for soft water. Hard water makes
it more difficult for males to build bubblenests, because the bubbles pop in hard water, and you may find mineral deposits in tanks
and containers. High GH has also been liked to the all too familiar ray curling in Crowntails, although it is not the only factor
involved with curling rays.
KH is a very important part of water chemistry, although many people do not test for it or know what
it is. It can actually be the difference between life and death for your Bettas, so get familiar with it and test for it. What KH does is prevent your PH from crashing. The higher your KH, the more stable your pH. If your KH is low, your pH
can drop significantly within 24 hours, and I have seen it lead to death in juvenile Bettas in 48 hours. My water has a very
unstable KH. At times it comes out low, while other times it comes out fine. To rectify this, I add a teaspoon of baking
soda to each 5 gallons of water I prepare. The amount each person needs to add (if any at all) will vary with your own water
parameters.
Please buy a good test kit. In my opinion, a test kit that gives you “total hardness” is useless. These tests combine your GH and KH levels and lump them into one number. Lumping together GH and KH into one test is like lumping together tire pressure and fuel pressure on your car into a “total pressure” score. They are completely unrelated and therefore give you a useless number. The best test kits are the ones that come with liquid reagents and test tubes. Quick dip strips can give you a basic idea, but if you want complete accuracy, go with the more expensive liquid kits. They last an unbelievably long time as well, so they actually end up being much cheaper in the long run.
For an adult Betta kept in the
bare minimum of space (1/2 gallon), 100% water changes need to be done religiously at least once a week, with twice a week being much
better. If kept in a gallon container, 100% water changes can be done once a week. For larger containers or tanks, water
changes can be done less frequently, or reduced to 50% water changes on a frequent basis. If you are unsure when your Betta's
water needs to be changed, you can again use a test kit. You will want to test for ammonia, nitrites, and nitrates. You
will want to get readings of 0ppm for each of these. When you test your water and see one of these three starting to register
a reading, change as much water as needed to rectify the situation immediately.