Beta fish question??

Question

okay thanks to everyone that answered my question about what fish to get my son! after looking in the internet and talking to others and asking you guys! i decided on a beta fish. we got him one and he's a boy. anyway my question is why does the tank seem to get cloudy so quickly??

i had bought a starter tank especially for betas that came with everything. i did however buy extra food and water conditioner. anyway it has a little filter and everything so why is it so cloudy so quickly?? got it saturday and by sunday it was cloudy. how often should i change the tank?? the internet told me two things. once a week and then it said every 2-3 days. what do you guys say??? and is it 100% water changes or not?? the tank is about a 2 gallon tank.

thanks for all your help!!

Answer 1

ohh no i wouldnt say change it every three days, changing it once a week is plenty, and you only have to change around 30%, so mabye 1/2-1 gallon a week

mabye your overfeeding it also, just feed it a little, about the amount it can eat in 3 minutes once or twice a day

as for cloudiness, im pretty sure thats normal because when you introduce a fish to a new tank with clean water and new equipment the fish will produce waists, so these waists are in there degrading but soon enough good bacteria will form around the tank and in the filter and that will remove the bad chemicals from the fish waste (yeha you could change mabye a cupful of water a day to remove some of the waist but its best to tleave it till your next water change)

Answer 2

the tank is cycling. thats why its cloudy. just do small waterchanges evey other day, (about 10%) until it clears up, then resume doing weekly 25% water changes.  

cycling is basically just the build up of beneficial bacteria in the tank.  therefore, if you are constantly changing ALL of the water in the tank, then the tank will be constantly cycling, resulting in always cloudy water.

Never change all the water, because tis can be very stressful for the fish. it will also cause an ammonia spike wich will kill the fish.

Answer 3

You are probably over feeding it. Once a week is enough. Change about 1/3 of the water. You don't want to change all the water at once because it builds up good bacteria that help to keep the tank stable. It also stresses the fish if the water ph is constantly changing.

Answer 4

change 25% of the water every week ,feed him the minimum amount of food not over feed as too much waste will get into the water to also make it cloudy also it is the chlorine in the water that makes it go cloudy too u can use a de-chlorinater which will help inprove the water quality or filter aid made by interpet it will make the water go crystal clear it will connect the small particles together to enable the filter to do its job properly as u did say its a small filter  also it is cycling still as the beta poos it will put debruis/bacteria in the water hope this helps u out

Answer 5

the "cloudyness" in the water is the beneficial bacteria making themselves a home :)

it will settle down after 2 weeks or so... make sure to only be changing 1 third of the water once a week and syphon it from the bottom of the tank not the top! the bacteria u want to remove lives in the gravel :)

Answer 6

You shouldn't change the water that often w/ Bettas because they have a natural bacteria which they produce to survive. If the water is too clean, they will die w/o the bacteria.  The water is cloudy because of the bacteria it needs to produce.  Bettas do best in a small vase w/ a plant on top. The betta and plant will survive off of each other. Bettas are used to small livingspaces since they are found in Asia living in small pods.  Just make sure to leave half of the water in the tank when changing and only use bottled water at room temperature.

Answer 7

Do not worry! It's very normal for your tank to go cloudy after you have set it up it happened in my tank when i first got mine is called new tank syndrome.

here's whats going on at a micro level!

When you first set up your tank is a completely clean environment, you have to do what is called cycling, cycling is just helping the good microbes to multiply so they can consume and control the bad microbes like the ammonia and nitrate.

this is what is called the nitrogen cycle.

.Fish waste produces ammonia

.Ammonia coverts into nitrite

.Nitrite converts into nitrate

simple isn't it! so this will take about a month at the end of this time test the water and if every thing is at 0 then congratulations! you have now cycled your tank!

now you can add more fish if you like but not all at once! because you will put to much strain on the bio filter and it will not be able to control the ammonia levels.

so every week and a few fish and you will be ok>

Good luck with cycling your new tank!