6. “So exactly why is it that smaller tanks require more water changes with more water volume change each time compared to the larger tanks?” “What is cycling?”
It comes down to the waste to water ratio. If you start off with clean 100% water change, you’ll have 0:1 waste:water ratio. Each time your fish leaves waste of any kind or any uneaten food unattended will raise the waste higher and higher and the only way to lower it would be to perform water changes. It’s also very important to understand the cycling process, regardless if you plan on having a filter or not. Understanding this process will help you understand the importance of water changes.
I’ve never heard of tank cycling until I bought Billy three months ago. “Cycling” refers to the establishment of beneficial bacteria bed in your biological filter. These beneficial bacteria (I’ll refer to them as BB from here on) remove the toxins that your fish’s metabolism creates. Your filter will grow a culture of bacteria that digest ammonia and turn it into NitrITE, which is more toxic than the ammonia. Then your filter will produce bacteria that digest the NitrITE and turn it into relatively harmless (in small amounts) of NitrATE. NitrATE will contribute to stress if left unattended and in high amounts can become dangerous and toxic in your tank. The only way to remove the NitrATE is to perform regular water changes (
http://www.firsttankguide.net/cycle.php). This is also referred to as the nitrogen cycle.
In other words, when your fish gets fed they will turn the food into waste. As the waste decomposes, it turns into ammonia and then turns into NitrITE. This is deadly to the fish. In your case, in such a small home and one 50% water change a week, the bioload of your betta will continue to pile, turning into ammonia and then turning into NitrITE. Unless you change all, if not most, of the water, the NitrITE will sit in the tank and pile on and with only one 50% water change a week your ammonia and NitrITE levels will spike. Filters with BB on the cartridge help turn these NitrITEs into NitrATEs, which is less harmful to the fish. In small concentrations of NitrATEs is acceptable in a freshwater/tropical tank. However, if you ignore water changes and allow the NitrATEs to pile, it can become toxic in high amounts. The only way for your NitrATE to turn into NitrATE is with a BB colony on a filter.
With no filter, your container will only hold the NitrITE (not to be confused with NitrATE) which is toxic. Unless you have a filter with BB colonies, the only way to remove your NitrITE is to perform water changes. In the same sense, the only way to remove NitrATE is to also perform water changes, restarting the ammonia > NitrITE > NitrATE > Water Change process. That’s where the water parameters part of the form I asked you to fill out earlier comes into play. You want zero ammonia and zero NitrITE. The only way to know how much of each you have your tank is to buy a freshwater test kit. Although it’s good to have and a great investment in the long run, they run around $30-40 per kit. I personally cannot buy one at the moment but unless you’re trying to cycle a tank or have constant problems in your tank, keeping up with enough water changes is enough to keep ammonia and NitrITE levels down and you won’t need to test the water (unless there’s a problem or you’re trying cycle a tank with a new filter like I said before).
So let’s review:
(Fishie) eats food > Food turns into Waste > Waste decomposes into Ammonia (TOXIC) > Ammonia turns into NitrITE (TOXIC). This is usually where tanks, such as my tanks, with no filter, ends. To remove the NitrITE, we perform water changes.
However, most people have filters so the process continues from above:
Ammonia turns into NitrITE > NitrITE is converted into NitrATE by beneficial bacteria colonies imbedded in the filter cartridge. This is done by a proper and complete tank cycle > In low concentrations, NitrATE is okay to have but it will just continue to sit and pile. In large amounts, this becomes toxic so water changes are done to remove this and start this process all over again.
Remember that the Cycling process or “tank cycling” is referring to growing a BB colony on your filter cartridge. The process I reviewed above is just how ammonia and NitrITE become present in a fish tank. This is important to understand since we must keep up with water changes. And we both know water changes are important to keep the water from looking gross. Why does it look gross? It’s this water process of Ammonia > NitrITE. In larger tanks, algae growth can become another issue but I’ll leave that out of the explanation since that’s not an issue for you at the moment.
Even if you don’t plan on having a filter, it’s important to know why we perform such frequent water changes. Tropical fish, betta fish in our case, are sensitive to ammonia and NitrITE and are susceptible to ammonia burns. Knowing how ammonia appears in our tank water and why fish get sick from it is explained by the cycling process.
However, I read it’s difficult to establish a fully cycled tank in anything smaller than 5 gallons. I hesitate to upgrade my tanks to 10 gallons because larger tanks require a filter and having a filter requires you to spend a few weeks to fully cycle a tank and establish the BB colony on the cartridge. I’ve never cycled any tank before so I’m rather intimidated by it but I’ve read and spent many days trying to understand it in case I do decide to upgrade my tanks. It’s nice to know
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7. “It all seems to be differing opinions on different sites, and that they all seem to be talking about their experience (which always varies because every one and every fish is different) and not really people who are specialists/experts or devoted to study these fishes. It just makes me wonder how valid are everyone's thoughts.”
I won’t lie and agree that on a lot of websites and opinions vary. However there have been scientific studies done to prove many aspects I’ve covered (i.e. the Nitrogen cycle). People of 30, 40, or 50 years of fish keeping experience can tell you some of the same things I covered. It does come down to experience but of all the things I’ve researched, the very median of everything I read is everything I’ve covered here for you. You’re always free to make adjustments to what you’ve been told and advised to do since in the end, it’s your pet and your experience. I’m only here to help explain certain things and hopefully give you the answers you’re seeking to help you.
There are a lot of research papers and books you can read and even articles online with scientific studies and experts to give you these types of information. However, most studies show bare minimum and since I want my bettas to live a gazillion years, I'll do what I can to increase longevity. The best way to know how other than reading for countless hours is to ask experts themselves who have been into the fish keeping hobby for decades. Luckily, forums like this can bring us together and share our stories and experiences to better understand these cute creatures we seem to like to spoil.
8. “I hope you understand that I am only questioning because I want to take good care of my fish and don't want to blindly listen to one side or the other.”
And I completely understand! I was the exact same way, which ended up making me obsessed with researching more and more information on betta care since I’ve become addicted to these little guys. And I’m not here to force you to do anything and I’m not here to say what I explained and said thus far is law—only that this is what I’ve researched and sharing my experience. Like I said before, it comes down to you and what you’d like to do for your betta friend since in the end he is yours to care for. I, too, hope that you give the best care to your fish and I hope I was able to clear up some of your questions.
9. “I will do more frequent water changes but I worry that it will stress him out too much since I have to net him into a small cup. And I worry that 100% water changes so often will put him into fatal shock! I heard aquarium salt can keep harmful bacteria away, should I start him on it too?”
I just brought home a third betta and he’s temporarily housed in a ½ gallon Marina Betta Kit (Since upgrading my fish tanks, I use this as a hospital tank now) until I can get him a better 2.5g tank. He’s so feisty; I can never catch him with a net or cup lol. I’ve tipped the container with him still in it to pour as much water out as I can before. Since it seems to scare him, I just place the container next to my bathroom sink and cup out as much water as I can and pour in new water carefully, slowly, and gently to avoid water currents. It takes a total of 5 minutes for me to do this and I change the water every 24 hours. Then I’ll feed him to let him know that the 5 minutes of horror can lead to yummy food lol. If you properly acclimate him to the new water, your fish will not go into shock; especially if you’re using room temperature water and remember to treat the water with water conditioner. I’ve read a lot of different acclimation times and to date I can’t find one definite answer. However, I usually spend 20 minutes to acclimate my third betta in the ½ gallon and about 60 minutes to acclimate my other two in 2.5g tanks. I’ve read acclimation times of between 10-120 minutes, so it’s hard to say. If you have a heater and you need to wait for the heater to heat up the new water, it takes longer to acclimate the fish. But in a smaller container, I think 20 minutes is enough time to acclimate them to the new water.
AQ Salt can help fend off infection but it cannot be used for more than 10 days. I’ve read very few people claiming 14 days is the cut off mark but most of my research finds say 10 days. I never go past 10 days and usually spend only 5-7 days if I ever need to use it. You can treat him for 2-3 days of AQ Salt treatment if you wish but I don’t think it’s necessary. If you do wish to use it for 2-3 days, make sure you take some treated tank water in a cup and mix the appropriate amount of AQ Salt in it. Make sure to completely dissolve the salt in the water and slowly pour in the mixture into the tank. In my ½ gallon hospital tank, I usually pour in about half and the second half about 15 minutes later. Just so my betta isn’t suddenly swimming in all that salt. Remember that if you plan on using AQ Salt, you either have to dump all the water out to put in new salt or readjust the AQ Salt dosage if you’re only doing partial water changes so you ensure you don’t overdose on the salt. If changing 100% every day is too much and you wish to not stress the betta by netting him every day, you can change 50% every day and leave him in the container. But if you only do 50% a day, I highly suggest performing that every day. Otherwise, 100% every other day is the bare minimum in my opinion. We need to make sure the NitrITE levels stay down!
10. “Also is there a difference between stress coat and water conditioner? (I ask because will stress coat make him heal faster?)”
API Stress Coat+ is what I’m using to treat Billy with his fin problems and that bottle is already a water conditioner. The stress coat will help with the healing/recovering process and I don’t know how much of this is true but the bottle says their study finds that the bottle will help reduce 40% of stress. It’s probably just hindsight but I think it has helped Billy distress a lot and he seems much more calm and chipper. Probably just hindsight since I personal don’t have scientific evidence this is even true lol.
I’ve read people using both their regular water conditioner and stress coat at the same time to help treat their tanks and haven’t had much problem. I do this for Billy’s since my regular water conditioner is Prime and Prime helps lock ammonia down for a short period of time and I add stress coat to help with his healing.
But essentially, the stress coat itself is already a water conditioner so you can just use the one bottle. Many people seem to like the stress coat water conditioner and I personally am a fan of it.
I’m sorry for the long post but I really hope this has helped you in some way, or at least given you a different perspective. I wish you the best of luck and always feel free to continue to update us on your betta’s condition to help you along the way. I also apologize for any grammar or spelling errors. I sat here for three hours typing this and ensuring that I wasn’t getting confused with a few things since it’s a lot of information lol. I might of repeated myself a few times as well.
If you have any other questions, please feel free to ask and I will be more than happy to help you or direct you to someone who can help if I am unable to answer. Thanks for taking the time to consider my suggestions and advice and thanks for reading!