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Getting Your Betta Home & Set Up in Its Bowl
Packing Your Betta
Once you've selected the betta you want, (Yeah! You should be at least a little excited.)
you'll either be given the betta, cup and all to go home with, or the store will put your
betta in a clear plastic bag for you. If they bag the fish, ask for it to be double-bagged and
for them to add even a cup of extra water from one of the stock tanks (in pet stores, usually
all the stock tanks have the same water source, so it doesn't much matter which tank you get the water from. If you're buying from a good store, the tank won't have any dead or sick fish in it anyway.) Some stores can fill up the bag with pure oxygen, like a ballon. You can ask for the oxygen, but few stores offer this service anymore.
The Drive Home
During checkout and the drive home, try to keep your fish from getting bumped. If you have a
cloth or paper bag, put the fish in there. The darkness will calm the fish a little - remember
bettas don't like direct sunlight, so if that little cup is on the seat next to you on the way home, its going to get blasted with sun at least once. Also, don't put your fish right up next to the heater or air conditioner vents - that little cup, or the little bag has so little water in it that the temperature can change fast. All these little, seemingly inconsequential things add up to a lot of stress for your betta, and just bringing the fish home is a lot of stress to begin with.
Tank/Bowl is Setup
Hopefully, you're bringing your betta home to a tank or bowl that's already setup for them. If not,
here's how to handle your betta emergency: The moment you get home, put the betta's bag or cup
in a safe spot. Get the cleanest 1/2 gallon or larger container you can find - Tupperware or a gl
ass bowl will do. Fill the container up with tap water, and take out that tap water treatment
bottle you got. Read the instructions, which will tell you how much of the tap water treatment to put in the container. Add the treatment per the instructions, and stir the water just once or twice to mix it. It doesn't need a lot of stirring.
Now go back to the fish. Take the lid off the cup, or, if your fish is in a bag, open the bag and
sit it in a vase or whatever other container you've got that will let the top of the bag be open but not have the fish and the water slip out. Then, go to the stove and heat up about a cup of water, and add it to the water in the container. The water in the container should be at least room temperature or warmer - do NOT overdo on the hot water. You just want to nudge the water temp up 5-10 degrees to make your fish a wee bit more comfortable. After the water in the container has sat 20 minutes or so, you can release the fish into this temporary holding area and go about setting the tank up.
The fish can stay in that temporary holding area for up to a day. Do not keep adding hot water to the container or you'll scald your fish. If you're worried about the fish getting cold, hopefully you have a glass container large enough to fit the heater you bought. Or you can put the bowl on top of a water proof heating pad set to low. Check the water to make sure it never gets too hot. If you bought or already have a thermometer, it would be a good idea to use that to find out how warm the water in the temporary bowl is. By the way - this setup will also work when you're cleaning your bettas bowl, or when you're doing a once-a-season complete cleaning of your community tank.
20 Minute Water Changes
When the bowl or aquarium is ready for your fish, you want to introduce about 20-30 percent of the new tank water into your betta's current water at a time. If your betta is in one of those little betta cups from the store, you can add the first 30% by just topping off the cup with the water from the primary bowl. If he's in a bag, you can probably do the same. You may have to empty a bit of the water out to have room to add the water from the primary bowl.
Keep adding 20-30% of the new water every 20 minutes. About three times will do. This is a hassle, but it will make the transition much easier on your fish, which means you're less likely to have a sick fish, and that makes things much easier on you.
After three water changes, you can carefully pour your fish and the water in its container into the primary bowl or aquarium. Some people use a net to move the fish, but I think it helps to have even a trace of the old water left, and also nets are risky - its very easy for your betta to hurt his beautiful fins if anything goes wrong in the net. Just gently emptying the cup into his permanent home seems much less stressful - to you and the fish.
The First 12 Hours
Don't feed your betta for the first 12 hours or so. If possible, keep the lights dim to give him more restful conditions. Make sure the water temperature is good (78-80 degrees) and don't hassle him too much. Now is not a good time to put a mirror in front of him to see him display, or to tap on his bowl to get him to jump to attention. Leaving the fish alone at first may be hard for young children (or, hey, impatient adults), but try to give your fish some quiet time. Its been a big move.
The next morning, you can feed him a little - just a little! - not more than the size of his eye - and then turn up the lights and generally start acting normal around him. Still, hold off on the mirror tricks for a day or so. And be sure to watch for signs of illness or infection for the first two weeks. The sooner you see the signs of ich or anything else, the sooner you can treat it. Catching things early can make the difference between a little problem and an ordeal.
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