How to clean tank with baby betta/fry inside?
by Aquaboy on Thursday, July 29th, 2010 | 2 Comments
Well my betta fish mated and they hatched today. After they do a bit more of growing up i’ll take the daddy out. But the tank is getting pretty dirty. So after they are old enough where they can swim horizontally, can i change their tank water?
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Once the fry are free swimming you can do a water change. I would start out with a small 50% water change and then once the fry are about 2 weeks old start doing 90% water changes.
If they just hatched today, they will still be in the nest for a while. You should be able to use a siphon hose to suck out the debris on the bottom of the tank and about 20% of the water. Just be sure you add water as you siphon out the old so the nest is not disturbed by the water level going down.
After they are out of the nest and swimming around, put a nylon stocking around the end of the siphon hose so the fry won’t get sucked in and thrown out.
BTW, as soon as they are out of the nest and swimming around, you need to start an air stone or sponge filter in the tank so the bubbles break up any film on the surface of the water. Being anabantids (air breathers), they will need clean access to the atmosphere so they can get their first breaths and fill their anabantoid chambers. If there is a film on the surface, they will suck it into their breathing chamber and end up dieing because it will clog them up.
You do not want them in a perfectly clean tank, anyway. They will need to eat as soon as their egg sac is absorbed and they are free swimming. You must leave the father in the tank until they leave the nest. He puts them back in the nest if they fall out before they can swim properly.
Betta fry are very small and will need something that fits in their mouths when they are ready to find their first meal. Green water is good, as is infusoria.
Green water is made by placing an open jug of water in the sun until it clouds up with algae and turns green. The fry will eat the small single celled algae that cause the green color.
Infusoria is made by crumbling up a leaf of lettuce and putting it in a jar of water on the window sill. It will cloud up and turn a milky white. That is the small one celled critters that will be good eating for the betta fry for a few days.
Once they are big enough for a little larger food, you can feed them something like HBH’s “First Bites for Egglayers.” I have had very good luck with this and another fry food called “Sera Micron.” They both look like brown flour and are high in protein that the betta fry need.
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