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The first thing to remember with tap water is to always use a water conditioner, to follow the
instructions, especially as too much conditioner can be as detrimental to your fish as none at all.
If you live in a country where it is very hot then you may not need a heater, best to consult your local
fish store,(some may even need a cooler), for the majority of people you will need a good quality
aquarium heater, atleast some time during the year, if not for the entire year, that is unless you wish to
space heat the room to the correct temperature, this can be more cost effective for fishrooms where
many tanks are used.
I was previously using another well known brand of heaters and they had stat failures in 2005 and I lost
300+ betta fry and also an adult pair of Ancistrus Sp.(3), the replacement heaters of that brand also
failed within 3 weeks.So I decided to look around at the alternative brands, I found the Fluval Tronic, as
I use Fluval filters in some of my tanks and have found them to be very reliable I thought I'd give their
heaters a try, I am impressed with the Tronic its very accurate, reliable and a lot smaller physically than
the previous brands I'd used.
Fluval Tronic Heater (image kindly supplied by HagenUK)
Safety Cut off (image kindly supplied by HagenUK)
When cleaning the tanks, doing water changes or maintainance of if you intend to take it out of the water then you should unplug the heater 30 minutes before.Its good practice to always switch off the heater,filter,lights and anything electrical before placing your hand into the aquarium.
A heater guard is also advisable as this prevents any burns occuring on your fish.
heater guard for the Fluval Tronic (image kindly supplied by HagenUK)
You want to set the heater to between 26C and 28C, with 29C being optimal for betta splendens fry growth.
Heaters should not be used in any tank smaller than 5 imperial gallons as if the thermostat fails it will overheat and cook your fish very fast, compared to larger tanks.
Water changes - in the 1 US Gallon jars I use and the 2 litre jars for juveniles I change 100% of the water every day.
In the 4-6.6 imperial gallon tanks I change 10%-25% each day, eg; 10 % for an adult or a small number of fry, 25% for a large number of fry in the early stages.
In a 12 gallon I change also 10% daily.
In the growout tanks, which are several each of 20, 30 and 49 Imperial gallons, I also change 10 % each day minimum sometimes they get a 25 % change.
Why is water changed ?
Water is changed to removed toxins, waste food and faeces from the fishes tank /water as otherwise these will poison your fish, in a jar this can occur quite fast, so you need to keep on top of the water changing.
How is it done ?
You use either a gravel syphon, a piece of airline or a turkey baster to suck up the waste from the bottom of the tank.
Once that is completed you then continue to syphon out the desired amount of water.
You have some tap water which you treat with the water conditioner and raise this to the same temperature as the tank water and then use it to replace the water you have removed, top up.
How do you get the water to the same temperature ?
You can add some water from the kettle to the cold water in a large bucket, or you can use a python no spill system, which mixes the hot and cold water directly from the tap, this is the best way if you have a combination boiler system as its hot water on demand, whereas with a hot water system using storage such as a hot cylinder it is going to use a lot of the stored hot water up which may be inconvenient.
I tend to adjust the taps to the right temperature, I also space heat the fishroom so I always have 15-30 gallons of water at the right temperature that has been left since the day before covered.
If you have a spare sink that you are using for your fish care you can get a "TMV3 valve" installed on the pipework, this pre mixes the hot and cold water so that the water emitted from the hot tap can only be at a pre-set temperature, to within a fraction of a degree. If the valve fails it locks off the hot water from being emitted out of that tap. Thats why you dont want it fitted on your main sink.
Filters
I do not use filters on tanks containing a single adult betta with no gravel and plants or in spawning tanks which also house the fry for the first 6 weeks.
From 6 weeks until the fry are jarred they are in larger growout tanks where I do use a sponge filter and Apple snails.
I do not filter jarred juvenile bettas as I do not use a barrack system, I do not like them or the idea of them, eg; changing the water whilst leaving the faeces for the fish to swim in for days at a time, they are a similar idea to a puppy mill/puppy-farm but with fish, eg; minimum human time/input producing the maximum output of fish numbers. People use them as they dont have the time or wish to make the time, to care for the numbers of fry they are breeding, the better choice is to breed only the number of fry that you have enough time to manually clean their jars each day.
I prefer a more hands on approach to fish care rather than a production line, yes it takes much more time, its my hobby and I find it enjoyable.
If were to have gravel in a bettas tank then I would always use a filter as I wouldn't be positive I had removed all of the waste every time and it could build up.
If I were to have a single male betta in a 20 gallon tank with some corydoras catfish then I would run an internal power filter with its outflow set on low straight across the back of the tank.
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