Basic betta care
Posted: Fri Sep 05, 2025 2:41 pm
Basic Care
Betta are actually pretty easy fish to care for once you know how.
By this stage you’ve went through the process of setting your tank up perfectly and fully cycling it.
So what do we need to do now to care for them.
Temperature
- Check the tanks temperature at least once a day with a digital thermometer as these are more accurate. This just ensures that the heater is working as it should be. I usually just do this as I’m feeding them. I personally find they do far better at 28 degrees. There are some people who have lower at 26 but usually these are the fish who tend to have more issues. I used to have them at this temperature and ive found that I have far better thriving betta at 28.
- Especially in hotter or colder weather I would aim to check the temperature twice a day.
- In the winter months you may possibly have to increase your temperature depending on the type of heater you have just to maintain the heat, especially if the room they’re in is particularly cold. Some don’t need this though.
- In the summer it’s best not to have a tank directly in sunlight as the temperature will increase because of this, if it is and it can’t be moved then you can close the blinds or curtains. If you check the temperature and it’s too hot then you can start cooling it down by floating a bag of ice on the surface. You don’t want to dramatically reduce it and put them into temperature shock. If the ice hasn’t helped then you can do a small water change with slightly colder water.
Diet
- Now this is a super important part of looking after them because not being on the correct food can really weaken their immune system which means they will be more susceptible to disease, which in return can mean it’s much harder to treat the disease too.
- Betta are insectivores which simply means they feed on insects and worms.
- They require a high protein varied diet.
- Pellets can be fed to them to supplement their diet, it’s best to go for a high protein low fillers option. I personally don’t feed pellets but the only one I do recommend is the fish science betta granules because it’s high protein and the only fillers is to bind the ingredients so it’s a very low filler content compared to other brands which you can see reflected in the size of the pellet. It’s not got fillers to bulk up the food.
- Fillers are ingredients like wheat, rice, cereal and corn. These are best avoided as they can bloat a betta. They are quite prone to bloat since they have a small digestive tract. There is a file in the guides section under diseases and conditions that explains bloat a little more.
- Now although they can be fed pellets this doesn’t mean they can be fed solely on them. They need to have a supply of live, frozen or tinned foods. This is the part if missed from their diet can cause a weakened immune system.
- It’s best to add some form of live/frozen food in daily to their diet or the very least every second day.
- Frozen food can be bought in blister packs. If you only have 1 or 2 betta then a whole cube is way too much food to defrost and I personally hate cutting off bits so you can get a food bag, pop a cube in there and bash it until it’s all broken up, then pop it back in the freezer then all you need to do is take out how much you need each time.
- Food that they like include bloodworms, black worms, mysis shrimp, mosquito larvae, brine shrimp, daphnia, tubifex and mines love lobster eggs.
- When I first started out I only had pellets, brine shrimp and bloodworms and then just added something new each time I got a new order.
- When ordering frozen food it’s best using somewhere that does a next day delivery otherwise it can arrive thawed and you will have to bin it. I usually use the Fin Room mainly because I’m in Scotland where they’re based but others also use them for deliveries and they’ve arrived in excellent condition. You can also get a selection from your local fish store.
- Arcadia also do tinned food for them that once opened can be stored in the fridge for 4 weeks. They include brine shrimp, cyclops and bloodworms, mines didn’t really enjoy the bloodworms though as they weren’t juicy enough for them. Although you can only keep it for 4 weeks, any that’s left can be popped into ice cube trays and frozen to save any waste. The brine shrimp is amazing from them because it’s seems meatier.
- I personally feed mines twice a day with about 12 hours apart. But some opt for once a day. There really is no right or wrong with that just as long as you’re not under or over feeding. When you feed you want to aim for a nice round tummy but not bloating out. Some people say their stomach is the size of their eye but this is a myth, their tummy is actually bigger than this but they do have a small digestive tract as I’ve mentioned so cannot process too much food at once.
- I feed mostly frozen food am and pm and I love the condition of them better. But some people opt for pellet food in the morning and then a frozen option in the evening.
- A rough guide of what I feed is 10 of the fish science pellets as they’re tiny. No more than 3 bloodworms, usually around 6 brine/mysis shrimp and the rest I judge on the look of their tummy.
Exercise
- This might seem like a silly thing to say but exercising them daily helps strengthen their muscles and keeps them healthy. This is important for bigger fins especially because it makes them fully extend their fins out so that they can hold them strong rather than them flopping over.
- How I do it with mines is I sit with them twice a day for 5 minutes each time. I just make them follow my finger around and they start flaring.
- You can also show them a handheld mirror and they’ll start flaring and defending their territory from their own reflection.
- There are also floating betta mirrors that you can pop into the tank as well. Zoo med have a great one. This means that if you can’t sit with them that long to do it yourself you can pop the mirror in for 5 minutes then come back and remove it.
- It’s important to only do it for 5-10 minutes a day because longer can stress them out. So it’s also worth noting that if there are any reflective surfaces within your tank it’s best to try and remove the source.
- When bettas flare it’s a way of making themselves look bigger as they are all stretched out. So when they are doing this it’s a good time to check them out for any tears in their fins or any signs of fin rot. It’s important to catch any of these issues quickly before it progresses to anything worse. There is a file under guides about diseases and conditions that goes more into detail on torn fins and fin rot etc.
- For anyone who doesn’t know what flaring is, it’s simply when they push out their gills and makes them look like they have a beard.
Water Change Schedule
- After your tank is cycled you still need to test your water to ensure that your parameters for ammonia, nitrite and nitrates are stable. Even if ammonia and nitrite levels are at zero nitrates can still build up. If you remember back to the cycling post nitrates are the part where they’re tolerable to fish at lower levels and these are the toxins that’s up to us to remove, so anything high needs a water change to make the water safe.
- How often the water needs changed depends on the amount of litres the tank is. The less litres the more maintenance that’s required. This is why it’s important to test the water as you’ll know by doing this how often you need to change the water.
- A good rule of thumb is 50% weekly minimum but others may require to do 2x 50% weekly changes. I mainly have 22L tanks since I have so many betta and I need to do twice weekly changes. I used to only do once a week but I noticed that my Bettas are more active with 2 water changes. I often wonder if they feel how we feel after a good shower.
- Poor water quality can affect their fins so it’s good to keep a good water change schedule to prevent this.
Tools For Water change
- A siphon is good while doing water changes as this will remove the water but will also suck out any uneaten food or poop that’s settled into the gravel or sand.
- You can also get electric siphons that speed up water changes and really suck all the rubbish up from gravel. If you have soil or sand then its not worthwhile though because you can’t dig into the substrate otherwise it would suck the sand or soil up as well. I mainly use mines for filling the tank back up but a good one is the fluval pro vac. The also have an aqua vac which isn’t as great so don’t confuse them.
- If you use gravel you can use a siphon with a little guard where it will lift all the debris without lifting the stones and this means you can bury the siphon head into the gravel.
- If you have soil it’s best to not actually disturb that too much as it can break apart so the best thing to do is kind of waft the siphon head over the surface without actually touching it.
- If you have sand just swirl the sand around with your finger or a tool and it disturb the debris which can then be siphoned before it settles back down.
- You want to clean the glass so a magnet can be used so that you can just swipe this across the glass and it removes any algae or slime. The magnet works by popping one side in the tank and then the other outside and they’ll connect together. This way you can clean the glass without dipping your hands in.
- When water changing it’s worth mentioning you should switch off your heater as they have minimum water levels. You can burn them out leaving them switched on and you also want to switch your filter off for the same reason.
- I would leave the fish in the tank while doing all this and they’ll get used to you doing maintenance, just work around them. It causes them more stress removing them than it would leaving them in.
- When filling back up the water use a mix of hot and cold so that you’re roughly temperature matching the tank. You don’t want to give them temperature shock with a drastic change if just adding cold water.
- Now it’s all done remember and switch back on the heater and filter. Some filters can make a bubbling noise that sounds like it’s not working properly, a lot of the time it can be because there is an air bubble inside, so a little tip is turn it on it’s side to release that and it’ll run normally again.
- Once a month clean out filter. You do this in tank water as tap water will kill your cycle. The easiest way to do it is after siphoning out water then take the filter out and place it in the bucket. Just rinse off any sponges or media very gently and clean out any tubing, you can get brushes that clean tubing but sometimes I just roll up kitchen roll and keep twisting it through. Place it all back in filter and pop back into tank . Media sponges, ceramics and rocks can be used for months on end with just a rinse. When it does come time to replace them, do it gradually. You want to do this so that you don’t crash your cycle by removing the beneficial bacteria all at once. I usually replace half of what’s in there.
- Once a month take out any hard decoration like wood or rocks and clean it to remove any algae, or sludge, you can use a soft scrubbing brush for this or a tooth brush. Then siphon and clean the areas in the gravel/sand where they were positioned. When placing everything back in just make sure you know where your little buddy is so you don’t trap them under anything. I usually place everything back in the same position because mines hate change but sometimes you can move it around a little to make your tank look different.
Betta are actually pretty easy fish to care for once you know how.
By this stage you’ve went through the process of setting your tank up perfectly and fully cycling it.
So what do we need to do now to care for them.
Temperature - Check the tanks temperature at least once a day with a digital thermometer as these are more accurate. This just ensures that the heater is working as it should be. I usually just do this as I’m feeding them. I personally find they do far better at 28 degrees. There are some people who have lower at 26 but usually these are the fish who tend to have more issues. I used to have them at this temperature and ive found that I have far better thriving betta at 28.
- Especially in hotter or colder weather I would aim to check the temperature twice a day.
- In the winter months you may possibly have to increase your temperature depending on the type of heater you have just to maintain the heat, especially if the room they’re in is particularly cold. Some don’t need this though.
- In the summer it’s best not to have a tank directly in sunlight as the temperature will increase because of this, if it is and it can’t be moved then you can close the blinds or curtains. If you check the temperature and it’s too hot then you can start cooling it down by floating a bag of ice on the surface. You don’t want to dramatically reduce it and put them into temperature shock. If the ice hasn’t helped then you can do a small water change with slightly colder water.
Diet- Now this is a super important part of looking after them because not being on the correct food can really weaken their immune system which means they will be more susceptible to disease, which in return can mean it’s much harder to treat the disease too.
- Betta are insectivores which simply means they feed on insects and worms.
- They require a high protein varied diet.
- Pellets can be fed to them to supplement their diet, it’s best to go for a high protein low fillers option. I personally don’t feed pellets but the only one I do recommend is the fish science betta granules because it’s high protein and the only fillers is to bind the ingredients so it’s a very low filler content compared to other brands which you can see reflected in the size of the pellet. It’s not got fillers to bulk up the food.
- Fillers are ingredients like wheat, rice, cereal and corn. These are best avoided as they can bloat a betta. They are quite prone to bloat since they have a small digestive tract. There is a file in the guides section under diseases and conditions that explains bloat a little more.
- Now although they can be fed pellets this doesn’t mean they can be fed solely on them. They need to have a supply of live, frozen or tinned foods. This is the part if missed from their diet can cause a weakened immune system.
- It’s best to add some form of live/frozen food in daily to their diet or the very least every second day.
- Frozen food can be bought in blister packs. If you only have 1 or 2 betta then a whole cube is way too much food to defrost and I personally hate cutting off bits so you can get a food bag, pop a cube in there and bash it until it’s all broken up, then pop it back in the freezer then all you need to do is take out how much you need each time.
- Food that they like include bloodworms, black worms, mysis shrimp, mosquito larvae, brine shrimp, daphnia, tubifex and mines love lobster eggs.
- When I first started out I only had pellets, brine shrimp and bloodworms and then just added something new each time I got a new order.
- When ordering frozen food it’s best using somewhere that does a next day delivery otherwise it can arrive thawed and you will have to bin it. I usually use the Fin Room mainly because I’m in Scotland where they’re based but others also use them for deliveries and they’ve arrived in excellent condition. You can also get a selection from your local fish store.
- Arcadia also do tinned food for them that once opened can be stored in the fridge for 4 weeks. They include brine shrimp, cyclops and bloodworms, mines didn’t really enjoy the bloodworms though as they weren’t juicy enough for them. Although you can only keep it for 4 weeks, any that’s left can be popped into ice cube trays and frozen to save any waste. The brine shrimp is amazing from them because it’s seems meatier.
- I personally feed mines twice a day with about 12 hours apart. But some opt for once a day. There really is no right or wrong with that just as long as you’re not under or over feeding. When you feed you want to aim for a nice round tummy but not bloating out. Some people say their stomach is the size of their eye but this is a myth, their tummy is actually bigger than this but they do have a small digestive tract as I’ve mentioned so cannot process too much food at once.
- I feed mostly frozen food am and pm and I love the condition of them better. But some people opt for pellet food in the morning and then a frozen option in the evening.
- A rough guide of what I feed is 10 of the fish science pellets as they’re tiny. No more than 3 bloodworms, usually around 6 brine/mysis shrimp and the rest I judge on the look of their tummy.
Exercise- This might seem like a silly thing to say but exercising them daily helps strengthen their muscles and keeps them healthy. This is important for bigger fins especially because it makes them fully extend their fins out so that they can hold them strong rather than them flopping over.
- How I do it with mines is I sit with them twice a day for 5 minutes each time. I just make them follow my finger around and they start flaring.
- You can also show them a handheld mirror and they’ll start flaring and defending their territory from their own reflection.
- There are also floating betta mirrors that you can pop into the tank as well. Zoo med have a great one. This means that if you can’t sit with them that long to do it yourself you can pop the mirror in for 5 minutes then come back and remove it.
- It’s important to only do it for 5-10 minutes a day because longer can stress them out. So it’s also worth noting that if there are any reflective surfaces within your tank it’s best to try and remove the source.
- When bettas flare it’s a way of making themselves look bigger as they are all stretched out. So when they are doing this it’s a good time to check them out for any tears in their fins or any signs of fin rot. It’s important to catch any of these issues quickly before it progresses to anything worse. There is a file under guides about diseases and conditions that goes more into detail on torn fins and fin rot etc.
- For anyone who doesn’t know what flaring is, it’s simply when they push out their gills and makes them look like they have a beard.
Water Change Schedule - After your tank is cycled you still need to test your water to ensure that your parameters for ammonia, nitrite and nitrates are stable. Even if ammonia and nitrite levels are at zero nitrates can still build up. If you remember back to the cycling post nitrates are the part where they’re tolerable to fish at lower levels and these are the toxins that’s up to us to remove, so anything high needs a water change to make the water safe.
- How often the water needs changed depends on the amount of litres the tank is. The less litres the more maintenance that’s required. This is why it’s important to test the water as you’ll know by doing this how often you need to change the water.
- A good rule of thumb is 50% weekly minimum but others may require to do 2x 50% weekly changes. I mainly have 22L tanks since I have so many betta and I need to do twice weekly changes. I used to only do once a week but I noticed that my Bettas are more active with 2 water changes. I often wonder if they feel how we feel after a good shower.
- Poor water quality can affect their fins so it’s good to keep a good water change schedule to prevent this.
Tools For Water change - A siphon is good while doing water changes as this will remove the water but will also suck out any uneaten food or poop that’s settled into the gravel or sand.
- You can also get electric siphons that speed up water changes and really suck all the rubbish up from gravel. If you have soil or sand then its not worthwhile though because you can’t dig into the substrate otherwise it would suck the sand or soil up as well. I mainly use mines for filling the tank back up but a good one is the fluval pro vac. The also have an aqua vac which isn’t as great so don’t confuse them.
- If you use gravel you can use a siphon with a little guard where it will lift all the debris without lifting the stones and this means you can bury the siphon head into the gravel.
- If you have soil it’s best to not actually disturb that too much as it can break apart so the best thing to do is kind of waft the siphon head over the surface without actually touching it.
- If you have sand just swirl the sand around with your finger or a tool and it disturb the debris which can then be siphoned before it settles back down.
- You want to clean the glass so a magnet can be used so that you can just swipe this across the glass and it removes any algae or slime. The magnet works by popping one side in the tank and then the other outside and they’ll connect together. This way you can clean the glass without dipping your hands in.
- When water changing it’s worth mentioning you should switch off your heater as they have minimum water levels. You can burn them out leaving them switched on and you also want to switch your filter off for the same reason.
- I would leave the fish in the tank while doing all this and they’ll get used to you doing maintenance, just work around them. It causes them more stress removing them than it would leaving them in.
- When filling back up the water use a mix of hot and cold so that you’re roughly temperature matching the tank. You don’t want to give them temperature shock with a drastic change if just adding cold water.
- Now it’s all done remember and switch back on the heater and filter. Some filters can make a bubbling noise that sounds like it’s not working properly, a lot of the time it can be because there is an air bubble inside, so a little tip is turn it on it’s side to release that and it’ll run normally again.
- Once a month clean out filter. You do this in tank water as tap water will kill your cycle. The easiest way to do it is after siphoning out water then take the filter out and place it in the bucket. Just rinse off any sponges or media very gently and clean out any tubing, you can get brushes that clean tubing but sometimes I just roll up kitchen roll and keep twisting it through. Place it all back in filter and pop back into tank . Media sponges, ceramics and rocks can be used for months on end with just a rinse. When it does come time to replace them, do it gradually. You want to do this so that you don’t crash your cycle by removing the beneficial bacteria all at once. I usually replace half of what’s in there.
- Once a month take out any hard decoration like wood or rocks and clean it to remove any algae, or sludge, you can use a soft scrubbing brush for this or a tooth brush. Then siphon and clean the areas in the gravel/sand where they were positioned. When placing everything back in just make sure you know where your little buddy is so you don’t trap them under anything. I usually place everything back in the same position because mines hate change but sometimes you can move it around a little to make your tank look different.