I cleaned out my fish tank completely, how long should i wait to put my betta back in?
So when i woke up i saw my betta with a huge chunk of his back fin gone. So i thought fin rot, and since i cant go to the store i thought i would just clean the tank out completely, to get rid of the bacteria. And after i dumped out all the water in my 5.5 gallon tank. I realized it probably isnt fin rot, he probably bit his own fin. And well now my tank is filled back up, but i used tap water (that way i can have it at 78 degrees or else it takes forever to get there with my heater, its a good heater at getting it at a certain temp and keeping it there but its the getting it there is the hard part) And i put in the stuff that gets rid of the chlorine in the water and all the other bad stuff in the water out. But how long should i wait to put my betta back in. Right now he is in one of those little cups you get the betta in from the petstore. And i dont want to have to wait like a day or two because the temp in the little cup will decrease by then.
I know i was stupid to clean out all the water but it already happened, so please dont give me any crap about that. Just please answer my question of how long i have to wait to put my betta back in.
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put it back in now.
Its no special fish. Hell i clean my tank out with my fish in it, drain half the water than add it. My fish are okay ive had this dang goldfish 5 years its huge, were waitig for it to die :0
You don’t have to wait, just put him in. Float the cup he’s sitting in, inside the tank, to let the temperature match, for about half an hour. Then let him out.
In the future, you don’t have to do that, you can simply change out half the water without removing him from the tank. I used to do that with my bettas, I’d change out all the water once a week, scoop him up in a cup, empty it, clean everything, then put him back in… took me awhile to learn it’s unnecessary.
Dechlorinators work immediately, you don’t have to wait at all for htem.
Robert B is wrong, sorry, dechlorinators work immediately, they remove all chlorine and chloramine, you don’t need to wait 24 hours for them to work certainly!! That’s ridiculous!! The old advice about leaving water to sit for 24 hours came from way back when they used to only add chlorine to tapwater and to remove it, people would just let the water sit and it would evaporate. But these days they use something else called chloramine, which does NOT evaporate and MUST be removed with a dechlorinator.
I’m guessing Robert B is an old timer? The most you have to do to let the temperature match is float the fish in its cup inside the tank to let the temperature of the water he’s in slowly come to the same temperature as the tank water. You don’t want to leave him in the cup – it will be very stressful as he’ll be swimming in his own wastes, the ammonia levels will definitely rise if he stays in there for a day!!! It will be much less stressful for him to be back in the tank as soon as possible.
Well that was a huge mistake. You shouldn’t completely clean out a tank. That removed a lot of the beneficial bacteria that converts toxic ammonia produced by the fish into less toxic nitrates.
Fin rot isn’t bacterial, it’s fungal. I doubt very much he bit his own fin.
Set the cup in the tank and let the water temp match that of the tank, then place him in the tank.
You’re likely at the very least going to have a mini cycle on the tank so test your ammonia daily and make sure it doesn’t get too high and kill the fish. If you completely cleaned the filter you’ll end up with a full cycle.
You need to wait 24 hours to let the chlorine to evaporate and the water temp to go back to room temp. Do not listen to people who say to put him back in right away.
DO NOT change your filter, its best to keep your old filter at this point, it will help bring the water back to its normal state.
Run the filter for the 24 hours, put some stress relief in the tank. If you dont have stress relief, when you put him back in, turn off the lights of his tank for 24 hours.
I dont know how the fish got hurt, I dont think tis fin rot, its more slow acting then that.
Also, dont worry about putting him in the cup for a day or two, the tempature in there will be warmer then the large tank actually and it will be less stressful if he is in a warmer place for now.
6 TO 9 Hours …keep it in correct place to avoid the heat..
3 hours let sit room temp