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Disease Preventions |
| An ounce of prevention . .
. what was that old saying? Well, it was a good one! Preventing your
bettas from ever getting ill is much easier than trying to treat them.
Here are a few tips in keeping your bettas fit as a fiddle. |
- Clean, clean and even cleaner
water!! Make SURE and do those water changes. Dirty water is the #1
cause of illness.
- Add Aquarium salt after each water change.
- Quarantine any new arrivals that are
to go into the community tank. You should do this for more reasons
that merely disease prevention. It is good to do for 72 hours, in my
experience.
- Do not let uneaten food decay in
their bowls. This will foul the water, then you have dirty water.
Dirty water = illness.
- Be EXTRA careful when sharing nets.
I HATE to use the same nets on ANY two fish. Once one gets sick,
then they all get sick. Sometimes one may be ill and not showing the
signs yet. I hate it when that happens :( So what I do is in between
each fish I run my net through scalding hot water and let it soak
until I am ready for the next fish. I of course then rinse the net
in cool water, don't want any net patterns burned into those beautiful
babies! This takes more time, but is well worth it.
- If a betta has been sick or died due
to an illness, bleach their bowl. I keep a squirt bottle full of
straight bleach. When I am cleaning sick fish's bowls, I give a
couple good squirts in scalding hot water, and let it soak for about
10-20 minutes. Then I rinse, rinse and rinse some more. Once I have
rinsed it good, I fill it with water and add a dechlorinator and let
it soak for another 10 minutes or so. Then do you know what I do?
Rinse again. Bleach and I have a love/hate relationship. I love that
it kills all those nasty diseases, but I hate how easily it can kill
my babies. So be very careful when using it, but don't be afraid to.
Just make sure to rinse very well and soak it in water with
dechlorinator then when you setup the water for the fish, add extra
dechlorinator!
- Wash your hands often during water
changes. After using hand soap, don't forget to rinse VERY WELL!!
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