Betta Listserv - Betta Care : Cleaning

Keeping your Betta clean :

Ok, you are in the groove now. You know what to do with out water, what kind of home we need and what to feed us. Now you will need to think about keeping us clean!
	Unfortunately, fish bowls and even small tank normally don't have filters. This means that we mainly are swimming around in our very own toilet bowl! YUK! Keep this in mind when you are deciding how often to clean our bowls. Leftover food as well as our feces will decay in our bowl, causing ammonia build up. Ammonia is toxic to us, so that is why it is important to keep our bowls clean.
The smaller bowl you have us in, the more often you need to clean it. a 1 gallon bowl should be cleaned once a week. Anything smaller, should be cleaned about every 3 or 4 days. This makes for the best possible health and happiness.
	You should keep water for our bowl changes ready so that they are the same temperature. Letting it sit overnight is long enough. This will get it to the same temperature as the room as well as allow the chlorine to evaporate. If you live in the city, your water if full of chemicals that will kill us. Getting products such as Kordon's Novaqua & Amquel will detoxify the water and help us regain our stress coat. These are excellent products to have. There are many other brands, such as Aquatronics Sheildex. It is also a good idea to use a preventative such as Aquari-Sol. This will help keep us healthy :) There is a large controversy as to whether or not Aquarium Salt is good to use or not. Salt is a very good preventative as well as a healing agent. Salt can be harmful to some fish, but not us. We don't mind a little salt in our water. Since it doesn't hurt us, it can do nothing but help.
One tip I can give is to NEVER pour us out of our bowl over an open sink. If you do not wish to net us out, then pour us into a cup or plug the sink!! I have heard TOO many horror stories about bettas accidentally getting poured down an open drain! What a way to die!! ARG!!!
	So, change our water regularly, condition it if you live in the city or know you don't have perfect well-water. Use water that as aged at least over night and be very careful not to send us to an untimely death down the sink. I think that about wraps it up :)