Betta Fish - Help!

[MiLady Mirlyn]

Ok, we just got a Betta fish and he seems to be doing fine, but the water's all murky... I changed it this morning (only about 1/4 to 1/3 like you're supposed to) but it's still cloudy. We just have him in a "goldfish" type of bowl... we'll probably get an actual tank soon, but don't have the $$ for it at the moment.

What can I do to get the water cleared up? Anything other than completely changing all the water? I just put him in there yesterday and don't want to traumatize him all over again so soon.

Any thoughts?

[Life201]

We always changed our beta’s full bowl of water, but made sure we treated it before switching him over and gave the water time to sit and become room temp. They’re pretty resilient and we never had any problems. Just be careful when cleaning the bowl. Our mistake was letting hubby clean the bowl. He used soap, which is ok for a glass container, but he used a plastic container to pour the new water into the bowl, or he put the fish in a plastic container while cleaning the bowl. The soap never completely comes out of plastic, and – after almost 2 years – ours died, as well as our tank fish.

Hubby meant well…

[Tearianna]

I've had a Betta sitting on my desk at work for 1&1/2 years now (named Oz). He is the messiest little guy. His bowl gets murky after only 2 weeks ... and I usually have to change it once a month.

I just open a gallon of spring water over night, so it gets to be room temp. Then I transfer Oz into a small bowl ... clean his big bowl ... fill it with the fresh water ... and let him get started on messing it all up again! :rolleyes:

[meliz]

Well as a bonafide betta killer... take a grain of salt with this one... but are you treating the water? And we were told to change fishies' water weekly... but I dunno. Ours lasted just a year, so maybe we were doing it all wrong.

Has the temp in your room changed? Is it warmer with heat on maybe?

Does the little guy look okay? Does he have little grey or red spots (signs of disease) or ragged looking fins? If he looks ok and is eating I wouldn't worry about it too much... maybe you just have to change his h20 more often? Or treat it more or less?

[angelrenee]

Bettas can be really dirthy fishies. You might look into a simple filter for his tank. I has one with my gold fishie even though they don't technically need it and he was always much happier with it on. I know you can get some pretty cheap filters at petco that do a pretty good job for small tanks like yours.

I wonder this too, does he have rocks in his tank? And if so, did you rinse them really well before putting them in? I made the mistake once of not doing that and I thought I never would get all of the rock smoo out of there! They've got quite a bit of dust if they don't get rinsed.

Other than that, I dunno. My poor betta didn't make it (he was very sick, not because of water, though). :(

[honeybunny]

I had mine in a big filtered tank most of the time, and I would only change 1/4 to 1/3 of the water in there. But when I had him in a 2 gallon fish bowl, I changed all of the water at once. I would change it every 3 or 4 days... whenever it looked murky. I think you pretty much have to change it all at once unless you've got a filter in the tank. I know you don't want to traumatize him, but there's only so much you can do with a small fish bowl. Don't forget that the water he's in is what he breathes. :eek: I know you asked for suggestions other than changing all the water, but I really don't know what else you could do. Maybe the pet store folks would have an idea.