Spent the majority of today setting up my youngest Bettas new tank. He was in an undersized 12L so I knew he needed to be rehomed in a 20L+ at some point, like my other Betta, but for cost and laziness reasons I have been putting it off. Well, I figured a long weekend is the perfect time to move him over.
I bought the tank last weekend, bought the gravel after work on Friday, and I thought I was all set up. I soaked some spare wood I had yesterday, and then today I began to put the tank together. Only to realise I didn’t have enough gravel. At 3.45pm on a Sunday. Sunday trading laws in the UK mean most shops close 4:00pm-5:00pm. So, thank everything I have a car. I rushed out to the pet shop and got there half an hour before it closed, picked up gravel and a background, because why order from Amazon if I’m already at the pet shop and they have them, and then tried to rush back but got stuck in traffic and yeah. It was a bit stressful. But gravel acquired I could carry on. I took my fish out his tank and placed him in a bucket (with a brief interlude where I held up to my other Betta to see what would happen. My other Betta caught on quickly and began to flare and display. Unfortunately the Betta I was moving was a bit frantic after being caught so didn’t realise what was going on. Note- I only showed them to each other very briefly, probably 30s to a minute! I wasn’t being cruel about my curiosity…) (Note 2 I don’t move my bettas using a net due to their long fins. I scoop them up in a jug instead! So my little betta was in a jug with some water when I was showing him to my other betta…)
Then I disassembled his tank and began to combine the old with the new. I had to use some of the old gravel, because I needed, well, the waste caught up in it (the gravel/tank base is an important part of the biological filter) but it didn’t match the new color scheme, hence why I needed lots of new gravel. So I used just a tiny bit of the old gravel and then covered it up with the new gravel. I planted the fake plants, and then moved the tank into position before adding the wood, filter, heater and beginning to fill it up with a combo of new water and the water from the old tank. (I also moved half the old filter media to the new filter – old gravel, old water and old filter media should mean the tank doesn’t cycle again and the biological filter should be in place from the get go!)
Finally, the fish could go in. But of course he was wise to my tricks and it took me ages to catch him again (fish are so quick!) I got him in the new tank eventually. There’s no baffle on the filter in the new tank yet which he definitely doesn’t like, but I think he has been enjoying exploring his new space? Mostly he seems a bit confused by it all. I hope I didn’t stress him out too much with the whole thing :/ he wasn’t in the bucket long and I tried to keep all the various waters he was experiencing at similar temperatures…. It would be a shame for him to get sick when he is finally in a proper sized tank….