Cleaning a Betta Fish Bowl

Nothing is as important for your betta's health as keeping its bowl clean. Dirty bowls cause almost all the kinds of betta illness that happen, but instead of giving you the doom and gloom and how bad dirty water is, let's just walk through how to make cleaning your betta's bowl a snap. Once you have a good system, you'll be less resistant to taking 10 minutes to clean the bowl, and as a result your betta will enjoy much healthier water.

How Often to Clean the Bowl?
For betta bowls of a half gallon or less, you should change 50% of the water every day for optimal health, and every other day to keep your fish alive. Once a week, you should take your betta out of its bowl and put it in a safe holding container while you scrub down the inside of its bowl, stirring up the gravel until there is no more fish debris to be seen after a rinse of the gravel. "Scrub" the sides of the bowl gently, either with a soft towel or your fingers.

For betta bowls a gallon to a gallon and a half, 50% water changes every other day will do, but still take your betta out of its bowl once a week and completely clean out the gravel and the inside glass. Also gently wipe down any plants or ornaments.

For betta bowls two to three gallons in size, do 30% water changes every other day, and a once a week thorough clean for optimal health. You can also get by with a 30% water change every 3-4 days and a thorough tank cleaning every ten days.

For betta "bowls" three to five gallons in size (this is the best size for a betta), do a 30% water change every other day and a once a week thorough clean. You can get by with doing a 50% water change once a week with a bowl this size, so long as you do a thorough clean every 14 days. It is hard to find a bowl more than three gallons, you'll probably be working with a little tank at this size.

All this assumes your betta bowl has no filter. It is very unusual to have a filter for a tank two gallons or less, but there are some nice betta tanks that are 3-5 gallons that do have filters. A filter helps, but you should still be doing a 30% or more water change every few days. Your betta will look better, be more active and live longer if you can maintain these routines.

Preparing the Water
The most important part of cleaning the bowl is just doing it, but the second critical factor is the condition of the water you are putting back into your betta's bowl. You should NOT be just turning on the tap and filling your betta bowl up directly from the faucet. You can use tap water for your betta's bowl, but it needs to sit, uncovered for 24 hours (48 is better) so the chlorine gas and other water treatments can escape.

If you have a smaller betta bowl, it is great to have a big gallon or three gallon jug of pre-prepared betta water on hand. Just "make" it in batches of 3 gallons at a time, and you'll save yourself a couple of hours a month in betta water management. If you can couple efficient water preparation with using the old betta water to water your plants, you can knock off two household chores in a third of the time it would otherwise take.

While you can use aged tap water, most of us end up using water treatments specifically made for betta fish. These liquid water treatments come in about 8 ounce bottles sold in pet stores for about $10 each. My favorite to use is called "Prime". Do be careful with using these treatments around young children, because they can be poisonous and dangerous if somebody got an idea that it might be a good idea to taste the fish water treatment.

After dealing with the bad chemicals in the water, the next thing to pay attention to is the water temperature. The new water should feel almost exactly the same temperature as the water in your betta's tank. If it is not, the best adjustment is to let the water sit for an hour or so until it is closer to your betta's water. If even that will not work, you can microwave a quart of the water in a very clean glass (NOT plastic) bowl and add it in slowly until the water is the same temperature as what is already in your betta's bowl.

Where to Put Your Betta During Cleaning
When you are just doing a water change, it is OK to leave your betta in the tank. But if you are doing a thorough clean, you will need to get a little net to capture your betta fish with. Handle the betta very, very gently, and put him directy into a little bowl that is filled with the old water from his bowl. Even a clean, rinsed-out coffee mug will do, but a quart-sized glass bowl is best. Once he's safe, clean out the bowl thoroughly and fill it with new, prepared water that is as close to the temperature of his old water as you can get.

You are not going to dump your betta back into his bowl. You are going to make things easy on him, and pour out about 30% of the water in his temporary bowl into his permanent bowl, then fill the temporary bowl back up with water from the permanent bowl. This helps your fish adjust to the new water. Do the 30% switch three times, once every ten to fifteen minutes or so. Mixing the water like this does mean you will be putting some "dirty" water back into the bowl, but it also means you'll be saving some of the beneficial bacteria in the water. They help your fish, so you want to give him back some of his old water.

Hire a Cleaning Crew
If you get tired of scrubbing down your betta's tank, consider getting a little catfish or a snail. Don't get a cleaning shrimp, because your betta will eat it. One small catfish can stay on top of the algae growth in a small bowl with no problems.

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