haedra

Just curious. All three of mine are giving me different experiences.

Devo- If I cup him, he gets upset. Not enough for stress lines, but upset none the less. If I leave him in, he is so nosey over the siphon that he gets in my way. He swims around it, and stares at it. So I'm still on the fence over what's better for him.

Mephisto- I absolutely cannot take him out. I tried it one time, and he had the most horrendous stress lines I have ever seen. Though he doesn't get in my way much, so it's ok for him to stay in.

Aragorn- Ok, this guy is being a little bugger. At first, I took him out. But then I figured he'd be ok to stay in; but he's taken to biting my fingers when they dip below the water line with the siphon. I almost feel insulted! So if I leave him in, I have to keep my fingers above the water line or he spends the entire time nibbling me!

What are you experiences like? I have been creating an awful lot of threads lately, but today is slow for me and I could use the entertainment!

prairielilly

Well I'm pretty interested to see what gets posted here too, as I'm having a dilemma with my Ivan as well. He used to get stress lines when I vacced his tank, so I began to take him out - now he gets stress lines with that! don't really know how to go about cleaning his tank without freaking him out? he's pretty calm about everything otherwise....

haedra

Is it the act of taking him out, or being in the cup? I was going to say you could cover it so it's dark in there temporarily; but if he's bothered more by being moved that won't help much.

prairielilly

I think it's all of it - he gets stress lines when netted, when removed with a cup (as gently as possible), when put into a temporary holding 'tank', when put back into his own tank, when there's a vac in the tank, when my hand is in the tank...high-strung little bugger. Once all my tanks are ready I'm thinking he should go into a 5g, that should help.

haedra

At least he doesn't bite you... like Aragorn has been doing to me.

uprightandlocked

I leave Aadyn James in and while he doesn't get in the way, he does come up and explore what is moving around through his tank. So far, he hasn't been a problem.

AquarAdvent

I don't take my betta out, but I use a turkey baster, not a siphon. He's very curious about it, but if he gets in the way, I slowly and gently move it toward him (but don't touch him). He typically backs off and does his own thing after that. I don't think he wants to get in the way of something that's bigger than he is and may be "alive!" But I don't know if this would be safe with the siphon, if it's sucking up water?

haedra

That works for me in Devo's case (since all he is is nosey). But Aragorn keeps trying to make a snack out of my fingers. He is a little piggie that tries to eat anything.. including my hands!

Amanda

I don't remove any of my 11 bettas, lol.
Some don't mind, others hate it, but they have to deal with it. It's only 5 minutes once a week.

capekate

Keeping the Betta's in or not really depended for me on the size of the tank they were in. If I kept one by itself in the 10g tank, then I can vacuum without really bothering anything and my guys were fine with that. I find its a different matter tho with a divided 10g tank which is pretty hard to get into each side to really do a good cleaning. So I take the little ones out, remove the divider so that I can clean that, then put them back in once the filter has been running for awhile to clean out any floating left over debris. I keep them in tupperware containers and my two little ones, the male and female seem to be fine with that, no stress lines that I can tell. When I used to have my little girls in 5g tanks, or even the 2.5g tank, I would have to take them out in order to clean. I will be changing out the arrangements this week sometime with each getting sponge filters and each getting their own ten gal tank, and getting away from the divided tank, its too hard to keep clean.
My Betta's have all been pretty mellow about being moved in or out of the tanks, and I think it gives them a little excitement in their life! lol...

agabr123

personally i leave them in, the girls in the 20 gallon are the worst, they'll jump all over the gravel vacuum and my hands, so i have to be careful with them. otherwise the rest of my babies pretty much stay out of the way i figure it's worth it to leave them in and keep them from being stressed than to remove them just for my own convenience (although they are a pain to catch, so maybe it is for my convenience!)

haedra

Indeed..it can be hard to catch them. Devo has gotten wise to the cup. Whereas at first he was nosey enough to investigate, he now goes nowhere near it; so I couldn't catch him even if I tried anyway.

BettasfortheBabe

I knew our fishlore betta's were pampered, but really, I had no idea that you all left the fish in the tank during a cleaning! Your lucky ducks

I have always removed my betta's into a small holding containers before I do any cleaning or moving around of anything in the tanks. In fact, I can't decide if my male betta is "bright" or not - he will swim readily and willingly into ANY foreign container we put in his tank - either he's a little dumb or I just lucked out that he's not picky that way. I've always done this because we remove all tank decorations, scrub them, and do a re-arrange a of the decor and gravel vacuum every two weeks and I would hate to have the betta's swimming around when all the "yuck" is kicked up. However, we do have a TON of snails with make a ton of waste, much different than cleaning a tank with a single betta. We DO leave them in for the weekly partial water changes.

I guess it seems like preference - I think my fish are so used to being moved for tank cleanings that it doesn't stress them out. Everyone hangs out in their holding cubes quite happily until we return them to their home tanks.

Shawnie

in my 20 gal long, i remove them...that way i can take out the dividers and redecorate and they love the new digs every so often..it keeps them busy ...i also switch out whose beside who when I do the cleaning..it also keeps them entertained to have a new neighbor now and then...on my smaller tanks i use a turkey baster and it does fine ...bettas stay in the tanks

prairielilly

Just did a gravel vac and wc on the three tanks up and running including Ivan the betta's 3g, and this time left him in there and carried on as usual, making sure as always to move slowly around fishie and give him time to get out of the way. No stress lines! no freaking out, nothing! just a happy fishie who right now is flaring away at his own reflection in the (newly scrubbed) tank wall. Last time he was a big ol stress ball - go figure. Huh.

Phinny12

I leave my Bettas in the tank.. They don't get in the way .. I keep and eye on them while I am cleaning to make sure they don't get near the hose but except for a casual "swim by" they don't pay it much attention.. I think they are used to it.

Martinismommy

You should see me trying to clean my 55 with all my (50 plus) ladies in there! They bite (love bites of course) my hand and chase it around....I dread cleaning that tank lol....I have found it much easier to just leave the fish in while cleaning....I don't even remove them from my 5 gallon tanks while cleaning...They get used to it eventually and stay out of the way...

haedra

Hee hee, I bet it's a game to them. I can see them thinking, "o hey, I'll bet I can nibble her five times before you do!"

Shawnie

all of this while in a wheelchair! nice visual lady of the shoe!!!!!

Martinismommy

It's NOT a pretty sight Mother Goose lol.....And even more amuzing is me rolling from room to room changing 20 jars! I must be CooCoo!

Amanda

MM, you still have many of the females from the MG spawn?

potter

Out of my 5, Sushi gets really mad like REALLY mad if I cup him while I am cleaning his tank so I leave him in since he doesn't bother me at all. Wasabi is totally a crazy character as he bites me as soon as I have my hand in and it will continue to "bite bite bite bite" x 10000 times until I take my hand out omg lol. Unagi and Ebi doesn't really care and Sake is okay so far. When I still had Sashimi, he doesn't care either...so I guess I am lucky but Mr. Wasabi is really hard to handle when I need to do some proper cleaning, he sure is spicy! Maybe I should change his name!

I use the small silicon tube that you use for air pump to siphon water out. I learnt that from my dad who used to breed mollies and Angel fish. With the small tube diameter, I don't have to worry so much about the betta being sucked and it picks the poo up better and less sand being siphoned out. And my Nerite snail is making way too much poo as they are big and I am thinking of switching them out with Ramshorn instead.

BettaGammaDelta

Just to add my two cents - I scoop Keun out and put him in a small tupperwear full of his own water while I clean, because otherwise he attacks the siphon and risks getting himself hurt

Not that he has, I just worry that he will otherwise.