Betta Went Into Shock After Water Change!

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GuppyGoddess

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Hi everyone,

Today my bettas fins looked a bit off, so I decided to do a water change and as I was going along, ended up taking out 75% which was a *stupid* idea. When the water was at its lower level, my betta laid down on a leaf and at that point I thought he was a goner. I slowly filled the tank delicately with individual cups of water (tested water temp before each cup) and he literally turned from blue to nearly white. He just hung at the top. Normally after water changes, my each of my bettas get fed a blood worm treat. Well, he didn't even notice his.

Thank goodness, two hours later, he has begun to swim around and finally ate a blood worm.

I had no idea he'd react so intensely. The last time I did a water change he became skitish for a few hours, but not in shock like he did this time.

For the longest time, I had been doing 1/3 changes in his 5-gallon. It wasn't until after I added a filter that he became more sensitive.

Any thoughts on this?

Thanks.
 
how long have you had him? have you moved him recently(to a new tank) maybe he is just not used to water changes yet? maybe you woke him up and scared him?
 
Is there any chance the pH of the water you were adding to the tank was different to the pH in the tank? A change in pH can shock them.
 
I've had him at around 2-3 months. He was first in a 2-gallon with daily water changes, then moved to his current 5-gallon and has been happy there. When I added the filter, he began acting weird after water changes.

The whole thing is just strange. My son saw him and thought he was dead. My husband said he didn't look good. I put a towel over his tank last night to make sure it stayed dark. This morning I went in to find him back to his blue color and he ate the bloodworm I gave him for breakfast (usually he only gets one every 3-4 days, but he deserved the second treat).

I've NEVER seen a betta turn so pale before! Lesson learned with this guy. Maybe only 10% every few days. (oh, and he was a rescue betta . . .sick when I got him. He rubbed up against rocks and just sat at the bottom. I used various products and water changes and he turned healthy. Guess he'll always be fragile.)
 
Is there any chance the pH of the water you were adding to the tank was different to the pH in the tank? A change in pH can shock them.
I used the same tap water as always. Only thing I wonder is that the gal at the LFS said that indian almond leaf can change the ph of the water. I have a few leaves in there. Maybe too much tap water did alter the PH a lot. I use the same leaves in another tank with one of my girl bettas and do 1/3 changes and she's never had a problem. I'm still just thinking my little guy is just highly sensitive. I hope he's going to be okay long-term. He's in my son's room and considered his pet even though I tend to the little fish.

FWIW, since putting the leaves in, all my bettas (even the girls) blow bubbles! Kind of funny.
 
i would assume hes just a sensitive fish. i regularly do very large waterchanges on my betta tanks with no ill effect to the fish..they usually become MORE active and even ride in the water stream. maybe you are right. smaller, more frequent changes.
cheers
 
I very much doubt your filter is the problem as long as the flow is low or you have a sponge filter.

If he was sickly to begin with then he will probably always be skittish and sensitive.
 
I very much doubt your filter is the problem as long as the flow is low or you have a sponge filter.

If he was sickly to begin with then he will probably always be skittish and sensitive.


Very true but this doesn't sound like PH shock to me, PH Shock lasts 15mins, after that its kh shock and thats what it sounds like in this situation. KH Shock can last days even weeks. You use indian almond leafs all the time?? Eaither use them or dont! The thing is it don't change your PH of the water and never will, but it will change the KH of the water up to around 3 degrees i have tested with my breeding setup compared to my housing setups that don't have almond leaves in them. Almond leaf water is expensive to do. I really mean this, most people just put the leaf in the tank and do normal water changes the thing is you can't do just normal changes. This is how I keep my water, I do in bulk so numbers are different than what you would do but you can estimate. This is only if you are going to use the almond leaf method.

Prepare a rubbermaid container with water
Sandwich bag half full of leafs, and half full of water,
Let those sit overnight. In the morning take that
water and put it into your rubbermaid container and
also leafs to. Let it sit for a few days then do a water
change with that water instead of pure water from tap
you will notice a difference. Once you do this the first time
on to second phase of the setps, take the leafs and put them
in a pot. Now boil them on simmer for about 4 hours with water
take whatever amount needed to make the tank look the colour
it is and pour the boiling water into the water that has been
sitting overnight in the rubber maid. To keep up with wate changes
just repeat the above steps till every last bit of the leafs are boiled out
then buy new leafs :)

Reason why you had this happen this is a guess. But you use to use normal water. The lady from the lfs told you to use almond leafs okay thats cool nothing wrong with that. So you go home and put a few in the tank now the tanins are leaking into the tank so the water is changing slowly, the KH is changing ever so slowly. Your fish is being acclamated to its new water over a period of 3 days if you do water changes every 3 days. Its now acclimated to the water its in. Now you do a water change and alot more than 10% of the water. taking water out raises ammo lvls when doing water changes that high of volume, also changes the chemistry of the water you now have in the tank. You now add tap water, by now should be a big no no if using almond water. Cause now you take the kh and put a huge spike in it so instead of the fish acclimating to the water chemistry it now just got pounced with sudden changed of KH.... I would almost gaurentee that is what happen. When I take a betta from normal tap water to a breeding setup sometimes I run into the same issue. (Stress) worst stress of them all KH stress.

I have run into this with my planted tank it having different ph values all the time is normal for a fish to stress 15 mins when putting them in, but really ph shock don't kill fish or really stress them out that much. My planted tank changes its ph on a daily bases morning reads 7 at the end of the day reads 6.5 or lower, slow increase they have plenty of time to adjust to it. But take a new fish and put them in the ph doesn't shock them its the difference in KH compared to tap water. Have you ever tested water at a lfs? Most the time you will find its tap water or tests the same reason is they do 90% water changes daily, not including bettas fish never have time to have a shock period thats why stores quartine fish for a week to get them ready for massive waterchanges.

here is a simple test take some java moss we will use this as an example and put it into a jar this will replicate a underwater gravel system that are in all local fish stores. Now fill the container with water. Test the water its the same as tap water right? Now in a week time test the water so you give a weeks time for it to cycle. Its different in its test resaults. Okay now the fun part. Do daily water changes to that jar now 90% tap water. Test the water before the water change and after the water change and record your findings. now after 2 weeks, lets go shopping for a fish for this jar for now. How about a baby feeder fish, guppy! Put it into the jar. I figure its cheap to buy a feed like 10 cents. now keeping this fish in that jar, do daily maintence of nothing more than just changing the water 90% every day. What are your resaults? :) I already know the resaults are.

Problem is when your water has Chlormine in it, not Chlorine, the Chlormine because this has ammonia in it very little might register on kits as .25ppm or less, your local fish store has the same water as your tap, the undergravel filters helps to catch the waste built up right after a water change.

I wright essays more than a paragraph lol but hopefully this helps
 
Wow, this is a lot of information. Thanks for taking the time to explain everything to me. . .I'm now trying to decide if I want to keep all my tanks with IAL or just have one or two since there is so much more to consider. (I have four betta tanks total). Oh, just to add to my above posts, when I say "leaves," I mean as in 1" X 1" squares that I had broken off from a bigger leaf. I hadn't added entire leaves to any of the tanks. Three of them are 5.5 gallons and one is 3 gallons. The 3-gallon betta seems the happiest and perkiest of them all. She's from a chain store (Petco) here in the states. It's amazing how healthy she is. I guess I lucked out with her :)
 
Wow, this is a lot of information. Thanks for taking the time to explain everything to me. . .I'm now trying to decide if I want to keep all my tanks with IAL or just have one or two since there is so much more to consider. (I have four betta tanks total). Oh, just to add to my above posts, when I say "leaves," I mean as in 1" X 1" squares that I had broken off from a bigger leaf. I hadn't added entire leaves to any of the tanks. Three of them are 5.5 gallons and one is 3 gallons. The 3-gallon betta seems the happiest and perkiest of them all. She's from a chain store (Petco) here in the states. It's amazing how healthy she is. I guess I lucked out with her
smile.gif

Thats how I started out along time ago when I was a kid keeping a betta from a chain store, got older and wiser and more money and actually do everything right the first time now, well most of it lol

IAL water is a chore on its own half the time I don't bother the only time I actually bother is when I am getting a female ready for real spawning(see the photos of bettas i posted the female is in ial water) or spawning just to get rid of the eggs out of her. Show bettas I recommend keeping in IAL water, other than that with having 9 breeding tanks and jarring bettas I find its to much work for all of them. Normal water is just fine :) Everyones situation is different though and not everyone breeds bettas the same way neither.

10 gal tank half full I put in a full leaf, let the tannins enter the water over 3-7 days this turns a really dark colour then I boil my leafs in water :) so a 5 gal tank use a full leaf you will see a huge change in your water. Also to keep in mind with IAL water, you will have Ammonia in your water because of the tannins, not sure if this is harmful to them or not, but I have run into my test kits telling me there is .25ppm in tannin water, sometimes more but no nitrites and little nitrates. This is something you will notice I also don't circulate my water and don't use a filtration system just simple sponge filters and change water daily :)

10% Water change daily in a tank sometimes i leave it for 3 days
90% in jars
Just remember eaither way you should let your water sit out overnight approx 12-24hours
 
Wow, this is a lot of information. Thanks for taking the time to explain everything to me. . .I'm now trying to decide if I want to keep all my tanks with IAL or just have one or two since there is so much more to consider. (I have four betta tanks total). Oh, just to add to my above posts, when I say "leaves," I mean as in 1" X 1" squares that I had broken off from a bigger leaf. I hadn't added entire leaves to any of the tanks. Three of them are 5.5 gallons and one is 3 gallons. The 3-gallon betta seems the happiest and perkiest of them all. She's from a chain store (Petco) here in the states. It's amazing how healthy she is. I guess I lucked out with her :)
all my bettas are by default from chainstores. i dont use any IAL in my tanks. just loads of plants and DIY sponge filters. my oldest is pushing 2.5 years and was fully grown when i got him. unless breeding, i dont see any need for IAL. just nice clean water and good food.
just my thoughts
CHEERS
 
Have you decided weather to use just ial water or are you staying with tap water I see you running into issues with IAL water with having the leafs in the tank
 

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