Am I taking good care of my beta?

[newbiefishowner]

Hi there,

We love our Beta it was a present for my son's first birthday...It looks happy (it's activity fluctuates).

We feed it freeze dried red grubs by 'nutrafin' - I feed it about every 3 days and only a small pinch (4-5 grubs).

Our house is warm 25C and the bowl is 6ft above the electric heater (warmth radiating upwards toward bowl)

The environment is a small but clean bowl with a wide top (approx. 1ltr capacity)

I change the water every 3 days or so (usually a third is replaced) unless it is 'dirty looking' then 'Fish' gets a full clean (I wipe and rinse inside of bowl and rinse away debris from under the tiny rocks).

I use tap water that has been left on the counter overnight or for a few days (sometimes Britta filtered).

Any suggestions...we love our fish and want him to be responsibly kept.

[fish_4_all]

Well opinions will widely vary on this one.

Some will say the tank is way too small and the fish is suffering.
Some will say it is fine as long as you take good care of it like you have.
Other will have something else to say.

What I will say, and this is my opinion on bettas, is he needs a bigger tank. A 2.5-5 gallon tank is a good place for a single betta and allows for some small tank mates like snails or shrimp. A small heater will also help to keep the water a steady temperature and a small sponge filter would make for the best environment. IMHO.

Only one thing I can see that might need to be changed. The betta bites are a good food source for bettas, I don't know if the grubs as a sole diet is the best thing to give it. Once in a while sure but mix in some betta bites and some blanched and pealed peas for best health.

[Falina]

My opinion is that the bowl is much too small and that the fish will become very depressed and lifeless in time but F4A has already mentioned this. I am inclined to lean much towards a minimum of 5 gallons for the tank.

The only thing I wanted to add is that by cleaning everything out and rinsing the entire tank you are killing any beneficial bacteria that has built up in the tank. Click on thee sticky by F4A on cycling at the top of Starting and Maintaining a freshwater Aquarium for more information on this. Stick to more frequent partial water changes and gravel vac to remove any uneaten food/waste from the gravel and under any ornaments.

HTH :)

[SST]

and for such a small tank, a turkey baster makes an excellent gravel vac.