Help! My Betta Is Going Crazy!

[lilfishie]

pH isn't a major problem as long as it stays stable they will be fine, but any trace of ammonia or nitrite is deadly

 

[little_mermaid]

but any trace of ammonia or nitrite is deadly

Then what do you do?

 

[lilfishie]

get a test kit, does you tank have a filter? i would do small water changes daily for now roughly about 20% should do

 

[little_mermaid]

get a test kit, does you tank have a filter? i would do small water changes daily for now roughly about 20% should do

Yes my tank has a filter; a nice filter at that. I paid a good deal of money for my set-up. What do you mean I need to change out my water 20% daily? I don't think I did anything wrong with the preparation of the water.

 

[lilfishie]

if you don't change the water then there is a chance that the ammonia and nitrite will build up, with no good bacteria in your filter that is benefical and breaks down the harmful stuff

 

[little_mermaid]

if you don't change the water then there is a chance that the ammonia and nitrite will build up, with no good bacteria in your filter that is benefical and breaks down the harmful stuff

Well I will try to do so. How long do I have to do that for? And how often? Everytime I put in a new filter?

 

[ReMz]

if you don't change the water then there is a chance that the ammonia and nitrite will build up, with no good bacteria in your filter that is benefical and breaks down the harmful stuff

Well I will try to do so. How long do I have to do that for? And how often? Everytime I put in a new filter?

you should be doing daily 15-20% water changes until you see ammonia and nitrites go away. then you will start to see nitrates.

This will take anywhere from 2 weeks to 4 weeks. You can get away without doing it daily though. If you miss a day or a couple days, it's not going to be the end of the world. Just keep in mind that harmful chemicals threaten the health of your betta if you do not remove them (with water changes).

The goal is that you then will not have to worry about water changes nearly as often, as the ammonia and nitrite gets converted to (almost) harmless nitrate. This process just takes a while and isn't fun to start.

Don't replace the filter when you change it. when you do water changes, use the tank water that you remove to swish the filter around in. This gets rid of all the solid wasted, but keeps the beneficial bacteria once the tank is cycled properly. Do not rinse it in tapwater, as it will most likely kill all the bacteria and then you start from scratch. Filters do not need to be changed very often, and when they do, you need to used the old filter media to seed the new one with beneficial bacteria.

It can all seem overwhelming at first, but read up on tank cycling and maintenance. It will make your life much easier in the future.

 

[little_mermaid]

if you don't change the water then there is a chance that the ammonia and nitrite will build up, with no good bacteria in your filter that is benefical and breaks down the harmful stuff

Well I will try to do so. How long do I have to do that for? And how often? Everytime I put in a new filter?

you should be doing daily 15-20% water changes until you see ammonia and nitrites go away. then you will start to see nitrates.

This will take anywhere from 2 weeks to 4 weeks. You can get away without doing it daily though. If you miss a day or a couple days, it's not going to be the end of the world. Just keep in mind that harmful chemicals threaten the health of your betta if you do not remove them (with water changes).

The goal is that you then will not have to worry about water changes nearly as often, as the ammonia and nitrite gets converted to (almost) harmless nitrate. This process just takes a while and isn't fun to start.

Don't replace the filter when you change it. when you do water changes, use the tank water that you remove to swish the filter around in. This gets rid of all the solid wasted, but keeps the beneficial bacteria once the tank is cycled properly. Do not rinse it in tapwater, as it will most likely kill all the bacteria and then you start from scratch. Filters do not need to be changed very often, and when they do, you need to used the old filter media to seed the new one with beneficial bacteria.

It can all seem overwhelming at first, but read up on tank cycling and maintenance. It will make your life much easier in the future.

It's starting to make more and more sense, but I am still confused in some spots Is this what people do with much bigger tanks? See, I wouldn't have an issue cleaning my tank once a week...though replacing filters would get expensive. At the pet store they said that I needed to put a new filter in each month when I go to clean my tank. Would I then soak the new filter in the old water? And then I don't have to do water changes anymore?

 

[Tolak]

All living things produce waste products, fish produce ammonia as waste. Ammonia is an irritant to fish at low levels, toxic at higher levels. The only way to remove this ammonia in a tank without biological filtration is with water changes.

Your filter provides biological filtration. It does this by colonizing two types of bacteria. Bacteria are living things, they produce waste just like any other living thing.

The first type of bacteria eats ammonia. they produce nitrite as waste. Nitrite is not quite as nasty for fish as ammonia, but it is a close second.

Not to worry, the second type of bacteria eat nitrite. They produce nitrate as waste. Nitrate is a pretty tolerable thing for most fish at low to medium levels. The nitrate, being much less harmful for fish need to be removed less frequently by changing water.

Bacterial colonies, like all living things, start life quite small, need to eat a lot to grow to the required size. This is all cycling is about, taking the few bacteria, letting them eat what they do, grow, and eventually become big enough to consume all the fish waste.

In the mean time, while they are growing, there is excess food, ammonia & nitrite, which must be removed with more frequent water changes. Once the bacterial colony, your biological filtration, grows large enough to consume all the ammonia & nitrite produced your aquarium is considered cycled.

These bacteria grow mainly on the filter media, the cartridges, sponges, floss, or whatever media your filter uses. Your pet store told you to take this out, this would remove all of your bio filtration.

Shops love to tell people to change media often, they sell lots of media & make lots of money. Unless the media, whatever it might be, cartridge, sponge, floss, is quite literally falling apart it does not need to be replaced, just rinsed in dechlorinated water.

My record for a filter sponge is seven years, it is still good, I stopped using that filter. I have other media running that is over five years old, still works fine. The cheapest Whisper cartridge will last a year, so replacing filter media is a bad idea.

You will still have to change water in a cycled tank, just no where near as often as an uncycled tank. A little work at the start makes for less work later on.

 

[ReMz]

All living things produce waste products, fish produce ammonia as waste. Ammonia is an irritant to fish at low levels, toxic at higher levels. The only way to remove this ammonia in a tank without biological filtration is with water changes.

Your filter provides biological filtration. It does this by colonizing two types of bacteria. Bacteria are living things, they produce waste just like any other living thing.

The first type of bacteria eats ammonia. they produce nitrite as waste. Nitrite is not quite as nasty for fish as ammonia, but it is a close second.

Not to worry, the second type of bacteria eat nitrite. They produce nitrate as waste. Nitrate is a pretty tolerable thing for most fish at low to medium levels. The nitrate, being much less harmful for fish need to be removed less frequently by changing water.

Bacterial colonies, like all living things, start life quite small, need to eat a lot to grow to the required size. This is all cycling is about, taking the few bacteria, letting them eat what they do, grow, and eventually become big enough to consume all the fish waste.

In the mean time, while they are growing, there is excess food, ammonia & nitrite, which must be removed with more frequent water changes. Once the bacterial colony, your biological filtration, grows large enough to consume all the ammonia & nitrite produced your aquarium is considered cycled.

These bacteria grow mainly on the filter media, the cartridges, sponges, floss, or whatever media your filter uses. Your pet store told you to take this out, this would remove all of your bio filtration.

Shops love to tell people to change media often, they sell lots of media & make lots of money. Unless the media, whatever it might be, cartridge, sponge, floss, is quite literally falling apart it does not need to be replaced, just rinsed in dechlorinated water.

My record for a filter sponge is seven years, it is still good, I stopped using that filter. I have other media running that is over five years old, still works fine. The cheapest Whisper cartridge will last a year, so replacing filter media is a bad idea.

You will still have to change water in a cycled tank, just no where near as often as an uncycled tank. A little work at the start makes for less work later on.

That is a perfect explanation. Thx for that Tolak. I didn't feel like getting into it and don't think I could have said it better.

 

[ibbledibble]

having just seen on your other post, what tank (and therefore what filter) you have, i just wanted to add. although you still don't have to change the filter media/cartridges that comes with your filter (you can just rinse them well in tank water or dechlorinated water) in your case, you won't be killing your filter if you do replace it. because you have a bio-wheel the majority of the bacteria live in the bio-wheel section (which never gets replaced or even cleaned{self cleaning apparently}) so changing the sponges/cartridges has much less of an effect than with non bio-wheel types.

 

[ReMz]

having just seen on your other post, what tank (and therefore what filter) you have, i just wanted to add. although you still don't have to change the filter media/cartridges that comes with your filter (you can just rinse them well in tank water or dechlorinated water) in your case, you won't be killing your filter if you do replace it. because you have a bio-wheel the majority of the bacteria live in the bio-wheel section (which never gets replaced or even cleaned{self cleaning apparently}) so changing the sponges/cartridges has much less of an effect than with non bio-wheel types.

ah good catch. def being more observant than me.

still no reason to replace that filter media though, unless it is super clogged.