Betta getting fins ripped/nipped

**kholm15** · 12-26-2012, 04:49 AM

i have a male betta in a 25 gallon aquarium with 8 cherry barbs, 6 leopard danios and 4 peppered cory cats. i noticed yesterday that his fins might be getting nipped by the other fish or ripped on the plastic plants and im thinking about moving him into his own tank. i currently have a 1/2 gallon betta jar. now this obviously way to small for him so i'm gonna purchase a new tank for him probably between 2-5 gallon in size. can anyone give some advice because he might get depressed going from a 25 gallon to a 2-5 gallon tank?

**koaladarshana** · 12-26-2012, 05:35 AM

Sounds like your danios are nipping your betta. They sometimes get nippy when they aren't in a proper school; 6 really is the bare minimum amount for schooling fish. The best advice I can give you is to get the biggest tank you can for your betta; the bigger the tank, the easier it will be to maintain pristine water quality. Make sure to cycle it first and buy a heater. In the meanwhile perform at least 50% water changes every other day (more is better if you can) for your betta in a bowl and keep him in a warm room away from drafts.

**kholm15** · 12-26-2012, 05:44 AM

couldn't i take water from the fully cycled tank he's already in and put it in the new tank?

**koaladarshana** · 12-26-2012, 06:00 AM

Well, no... the problem with that would be that the nitrifying bacteria lives in your filter media, not suspended in water. You can run a small additional filter on your 25 gallon for about a month and then transfer it to your new 5 gallon. You could also see if a LFS will provide you with used filter media, this way your tank will be instantly cycled.

Also... (please no one gang up on me for suggesting this...) I have had success with a nitrifying bacteria in a bottle by the name of Dr Tim's One and Only. If you give this a shot you must use the entire bottle! Some people swear by it, others are skeptics. It basically claims to work by greatly speeding up the cycle and keeping amonia levels throughout at a minimun.

Most people here, however, will suggest you get your hands on some cycled media. Ultimately, that is the only guaranteed way to safely get your betta into a new tank at once.

**imma24** · 12-26-2012, 12:58 PM

Originally Posted by koaladarshana

Well, no... the problem with that would be that the nitrifying bacteria lives in your filter media, not suspended in water. You can run a small additional filter on your 25 gallon for about a month and then transfer it to your new 5 gallon. You could also see if a LFS will provide you with used filter media, this way your tank will be instantly cycled.

Most people here, however, will suggest you get your hands on some cycled media. Ultimately, that is the only guaranteed way to safely get your betta into a new tank at once.

+1 - water has nothing to do with cycling a tank - it's the filter that houses the bacteria.

Do not put your betta in anything smaller than a 5gal (with a filter rated for at least 10gal)- they come in those little cups in the LFS only for display - not for permanent housing LOL

I agree it would be to the fish's benefit to run its own filter on your larger tank for a few weeks - either that or put some used media into the new filter to "seed" the new media with bacteria and then put the new filter onto the new tank along with the fish.

**inuudo** · 12-29-2012, 10:53 PM

If you want to move your betta sooner than it would take to cycle a second filter, you have a few options.

One is to move the betta into the new tank and maintain it unfiltered and heated. This would entail daily water changes. If you did this, you could keep the second filter on the original tank until it has a colony of bacteria. Unfortunately, you don't really have any way of determining when the colony is large enough to handle the bioload in the betta tank, so you might risk moving it over too soon and then dealing with ammonia spikes or waiting longer than you really needed to.

Another option is to cycle the tank with the betta in it. This will also entail daily water changes and careful monitoring of the ammonia level. It won't be faster than leaving the second filter on the original tank and might even take longer.

A third option is to house the betta in a temporary tank (unfiltered/heated as in option 1) while you cycle a tank using ammonia. That would probably take 12-14 days, and it's the option I would choose. It's very close to what I did (except that I wasn't moving my betta from a hostile environment with other tankmates but from a smaller uncycled tank to a larger cycled tank).

Of course, you could just keep the betta in the current tank while the second tank cycles, but that risks more fin damage and stress. Is there any way that you could partition the tank temporarily to reduce those risks?