Your DIY guide to caring for a finny friend in a mini home.

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Fish Care

In this page you will learn how to feed the fish, change the water, and clean the bowl thoroughly.

Feeding. Feed the fish once a day, only what it can eat within 2 minutes. DO NOT OVERFEED. More fish die from overfeeding than from starvation, so feed him carefully. Bettas usually don't like flake food, sometimes even the ones labeled for Bettas. My Betta loves pellet food. I feed him 3 to 6 pellets once a day. I also feed him freeze dried brine shrimp or live black worms once a week. If you feed him live food, make sure to rinse it well and only give it to him if it is alive and clean. You should not feed with live food when you have gravel in your bowl where the worms may hide. Some people prefer to feed their fish twice a day, but frequent feeding means more frequent cleaning. Twice the amount of food means twice as much waste material the fish will excrete. Bettas usually do just fine with once-a-day feeding.

Water Change. Fish excrete waste that would easily accumulate in the water. You don't want your fish bowl to be a toilet bowl. Therefore, regular water changes is necessary. DO NOT CHANGE ALL OF THE WATER IN THE BOWL, this is stressful to the fish and will cause his immune system to become weak. A typical 1.5 gallon fish bowl requires only about 20% water change twice a week, or once a week if it has a filter. Smaller bowls with no filtration need more frequent water changes. An unfiltered 1/2 gallon bowl would need to have a 20% water change everyday.

Cleaning. The bowl needs to be cleaned once a week, or once every two weeks if it has a filter. By this time your fish's particulate wastes and uneaten food have accumulated in the gravel, and these need to be removed before they rot and cause a bacterial bloom. When cleaning the bowl you do NOT need to change all the water. Pour at least 50% of the water from your fish bowl into a clean bucket using a scoop. Continue pouring up to 80% only if you don't disturb the wastes in the gravel and the water you are scooping out still appears clear. Then using a fish net carefully move your fish and live plants into the bucket. Next take a clean paper towel and scrub the inside of the fish bowl until it's squeaky-clean. Do NOT use soap. Rinse the fish bowl, gravel, and decorations well with tap water. Pour the old water with the fish and plants from the bucket back into your fish bowl, and fill your fish bowl 2 inches from the top with bottled drinking water or pretreated tap water.