1st Water Change - Thoughts and Questions

[CaptAndrews]

HI all,

First water change today, 50% after 3 days it. I am think future changes will be around 30-50% every 2 - 3 days. This is a 3gal tank with just one Betta.

Questions and Thoughts that occurred today....

- Is it normal to remove the fish into a temporary tank for gravel cleaning? I kept the pint sized container he came in; held it as it lowered into the tank and got him to swim into it and just pulled it up. I did an acclimation period after cleaning, and tipped the container for him to return into the tank after a few minutes of acclimation.

- I now am seeing some small white whispy looking strands in the water, slightly smaller than a 1cm or so. Not a ton but enough to notice. Doubtless they arose from water agitation but I am curious what they are from. Any thoughts.

- Would you wait for the heater to raise the tank temp to desired before begining acclimating the fish? OR would you just acclimate and release while the temp is still climbing? Its a 50W heater set to 78. Tank temp dropped to 72. Neither is outside of normal for the betta.

Water before and after is still slightly white cloudy. And of course the ONE thing I still need is the test kit/strips. I KNOW I KNOW! I'm making course corrections while flying blind... I will take some water in for testing when I go to get some. I may need to get a water softener.

On a good note, I've finally picked a name for him (I hope that's normal and not something that's more of a kid+goldfish+bowl situation.)
But his name has officially been declared Gideon; or Gidy if I'm feeling lazy.

 

[DoraCory]

I keep my Betta in the tank whilst doing the water change, it's probably less stressful than catching him in a net and putting him in a different container.

Your water change schedule sounds fine, you can tweak it once you get a proper testing kit.

The wispy particles are probably just stuff stirred up during the maintenance, although I have no clue what could be causing them in your case.

Cloudy water could be either a bacterial bloom or a case of not washing the substrate enough.

Is your tank cycled?

 

[CaptAndrews]

I keep my Betta in the tank whilst doing the water change, it's probably less stressful than catching him in a net and putting him in a different container.

Your water change schedule sounds fine, you can tweak it once you get a proper testing kit.

The wispy particles are probably just stuff stirred up during the maintenance, although I have no clue what could be causing them in your case.

Cloudy water could be either a bacterial bloom or a case of not washing the substrate enough.

Is your tank cycled?

and here I was thinking it would be stressful to have some giant plastic tube come into my space and begin turning up the floor. It will be easier to leave him though.

If there was such a thing as a fish keeper's motto, it ought to be something like 'Rinse Thoroughly'. I think that's the single most read phrase I've seen this week. And not from here, just from the instructions on Everything I get for the tank.

Did my best on the gravel, but it was the fine size so the only thing I could find to strain it was a tea diffuser from one of my tea pots. Sufficed to say, it took a while as the diffuser was rather small. I should be getting something to test with today or tomorrow to see how far along I am.