A betta fish is also called a Siamese fighting fish and it is one of the famous aquarium fishes. They are territorial and they belong to the gourami family.
There are different species of betta fishes. They usually have varying colors and come in various shapes. Veiltail Betta and Crowntail Betta are some variants of betta fishes.
Most people go for the male Betta fishes because they have radiant colors and long fins. Many people keep betta fishes as pets because they have amazing personalities.
Are you wondering how long a betta fish can survive out of water? Wonder no more. On average, a betta fish survive out of water for 10 minutes. A better fish can survive out of water for just 10 minutes maximum.
How long can a betta fish survive out of water?
A betta fish can survive out of water for 10 minutes. Although this is quite risky for its health. Try to make sure your betta fish has the right size of tank, change the tank water often and follow all the requirements your betta fish needs so it doesn’t always jump out of the water.
How high can bettas jump?
Bettas can jump 2 to 3 inches out of water. Sometimes, it could even be higher than that.
Since you know how high your Betta can jump, do everything possible to make sure you protect it from jumping out of the tank.
Why is my betta fish jumping at night?
A Betta is more active during the day than at night.
Your Betta tank needs an aquarium light. Make sure you turn off the light at night so your Betta can sleep well. You can stress your Betta if you leave your aquarium light on.
Your Betta may be jumping at night because you left your aquarium light on. They are quite attracted to light.
What to do if betta fish jumps out of its tank?
If you discover that your Betta jumped off its tank, you should act fast to put it back into the tank because if you don’t and your Betta dries up, the chances of it surviving would be slim.
On average, your Betta can survive out of water for 10 minutes. If you don’t quickly rescue your Betta, it may not survive.
It is normal for your betta fish to just lay still at the bottom of the tank immediately you put it back into the tank.
If you notice that your Betta is having difficulty breathing, you should pour some aquarium salt into the tank so the function of your Betta’s fin can improve.
Always keep your Betta first aid kit handy so you can always access it during emergencies like this.
How do you know when a betta fish is going to die?
You will know when your betta fish is going to die if you see it in a suspended position at the bottom of the tank if it lacks appetite if it becomes less active, or has white patches on its body.
You can rescue your Betta from dying with betta medicine.
How do you revive a dying betta fish?
If you have a betta fish as a pet and you notice your pet is about dying, there are certain things you can do to revive your pet.
Most times can experience health issues usually triggered by dirty betta tanks, unsafe water conditions, and even overfeeding.
When you see signs of your betta fish dying, what should you do? Check out particular sicknesses and how you should handle them.
1. Inspect the water and food of your betta fish.
This is the first thing you should do when you witness signs of your betta fish dying. You can save your betta fish from dying by properly cleaning and sanitizing its tank. If you do this and you don’t notice any form of improvement, then you should remove the sick betta fish from its tank and try out other medications. But if you are not aware of the prescribed medications you should give your betta fish, you should talk to an aquatic veterinarian about the symptoms you noticed in your betta fish.
2. Consider treating your fish for fungal infection.
If your betta fish looks pale, has clumped together fins, doesn’t look active, and has white patches on its body, it shows that it has a fungal infection.
Fungal infection is triggered by not treating your betta tank with salt and Aquarisol very well.
To treat your betta tank of fungal infection, clean the tank and treat the freshwater with fungus eliminator. Do this after every three days until you can no longer trace the symptoms. After that, to remove any remaining trace of fungus, apply BettaZinng or Bettamax to the water to treat it.
If you have many betta fishes, quarantine any infected fish so it doesn’t end up affecting other betta fishes because fungal infections can easily spread.
3. A fin or tail rot.
If you notice that your betta fish’s fin or tail turns black or red around its edges or if they get shorter or you see visible holes in its fin, you should treat for fin or tail rot.
To treat it, clean your betta tank every three days and add tetracycline or ampicillin to the water. To aid faster recovery for your betta fish, add a fungus eliminator to the water.
The tail of your betta fish may not regain its former color after this treatment.
4. Enlarged belly
When you notice an enlargement in the belly of your betta fish, it might be a swim bladder disorder that needs to be treated. If you also notice the absence of feces in the tank and your betta fish has issues swimming properly, it is a sign of overfeeding. You should treat this by reducing the quantity of food you feed your Betta with.
5. Treat ich
This is a common sickness among betta fishes. Some of the signs you will see when your betta fish has ich is that it will lose its appetite and you will see white dots all over the body of your Betta. This sickness is very infectious.
To treat his, increase the temperature of the betta tank to say, 78 and 80 degrees Fahrenheit for over two days and put some amount of formalin or malachite green to the water.
6. Treat Velvet
When your Betta has Velvet, its fin will be attached to its body, it will lose its appetite, its body color will change and it will always scratch its body against the gravel of the tank.
You can be sure your Betta has Velvet when by shining a flashlight on it to check for gold or rusty film on its skin.
How do you treat Velvet? By cleaning the tank and treating the freshwater with BettaZing.
Always try to clean your tank to prevent your Betta from contacting Velvet.
7. Treat pop-eye
Does your Betta have bulgy eyes? If it does, it means that it has pop-eye.
What triggers pop-,eye is numerous. You can treat pop-eye sometimes but some other times, you can’t.
If plenty of your betta fishes have pop-eye, it does that the water has issues. You should quickly test the water and change 30% of the water every day for 4 to 5 days.
Pop-eye could be the result of a bacterial infection. To treat it, remove the affected Betta from the tank and put it in another tank, then treat it with Maracyn or Maracyn II until it fully recovers.
If after doing all that and your Betta still doesn’t recover, it could be that nothing else can be done about it. Or you could consult an aquatic veterinarian.
8. Go talk to an aquatic veterinarian.
If you feel you can’t handle the deteriorating health condition of your Betta yourself, talk to an aquatic veterinarian to help treat your fish. An aquatic veterinarian specializes in treating fishes.
How long can a betta fish go without water change?
How long your betta fish can go without water change depends on a lot of factors. Some of them are:
- Is your betta fish staying alone in its tank or are there others?
- What is the size of the tank?
- Does the betta tank have filters or not?
Your betta tank would need frequent water change if there are many betta fishes in it. But if you have just one betta fish, a frequent water change won’t be required.
If the size of your betta tank is small, you would need to change more of the water often.
If your betta fish stays in a tank without a filter, you should always change 30-50% of the water every week but if you have a filtered tank, you will need to change at least 20% of the water every week.
The quality of water in your betta tank reduces if you overfeed your betta fish. How does the quality reduce? The quality of water reduces when the quantity of food that was not eaten gets rotten at the bottom of the fish tank. This will end up creating poisonous ammonia in your tank.
Always make sure the level of ammonia in the water is safe for your betta fish. When uneaten food gets decayed in the tank, they turn into ammonia and it becomes toxic to your Betta.
There are test strips you can purchase on Amazon or any fish store for evaluating the quality of the water in your betta tank, so you can know when it’s due for a water change or when it becomes too unsafe for your betta fish.
To change a betta fish water, you should pour out the old water, get the new water ready, and pour in the new water to the betta tank.
How long can a betta fish live without a filter?
A betta fish can live without a filter for long but it will require a water change daily if you want it to live healthily and for long.
If you truly love your betta fish your betta tank should come with a filter. I will talk about what you should know about betta fish with filtered tanks and the benefits of having a betta tank with a filter.
There are some tanks you buy that don’t come with filters. If your tank did not come with one, you can buy one. There are many types of filters you can buy. Some of them are sponge filters, internal filters, gravel filters, under gravel filters, and hanging on the back power filters.
Your betta fish should not struggle while swimming in its tank. You must buy a tank that is best for a betta fish, make sure the tank you are buying has a filtration unit out of the box. Your filter should be quite weaker than the size of gallons your tank can carry.
Now, what are some benefits of having a betta tank with filters?
- Your betta fish will enjoy quality oxygen when you provide its tank with filters. Filters aid in oxygenating that water.
- Minimal maintenance and water cycling are required when your betta tank comes with a filter.
- Removing excess feces, ammonia, bad bacteria, and excess food would be drastically reduced when you have a tank with a filter.
- Microorganisms that are vital to the health of your betta fish tend to thrive in a tank with a filter.
A betta fish performs better in stable water parameters and a filtered tank provides it with all the stability it needs.
If you are using a tank without a filter for your betta fish, it may tamper with its health if you don’t carry out daily water changes. But you don’t need frequent water change for your betta tank with a filter unless there is a disease or algae problem.
When cleaning your filter, use the tank water instead of tap water to clean it so that you can protect the beneficial bacteria.
How long can a betta fish live without food?
Just like most human beings require being fed with food every day, fishes too need to eat food every day, so it is normal for you to be worried about how long your betta fish can live without food.
Are you planning a vacation? Do you have a betta fish? Do you want to know how long your betta fish can go without food?
In this part of the article, you will discover how long a betta fish can live without food and many other things regarding the feeding of your fish.
Do you know that the stomach of a betta fish is smaller than its eye? Yes, it is. A beta fish does not need much food to survive. They can live for quite a long time without eating food.
If you have been giving your betta fish the required quantity of food, then you should be sure that your betta fish can survive without eating food for a week.
A betta fish can live for 14 days without food but I won’t advise you to do that to your betta fish. So, 14 days is the highest number of days a betta fish can live without food.
There is one other thing you should know if you have a betta fish as a pet. Your betta fish starts to starve after 4 to 5 days if you don’t give it.
Do not allow your betta fish to starve. Starving your betta fish will increase their stress and may even cause organ failure.
You don’t have to wait for your betta fish to starve before you feed it with food. If you want your betta fish to stay healthy then feed it with food at least every three days.
You can comfortably go for a weekend vacation without having to bother about the feeding of your betta fish. But if your vacation is going to take longer than three days, then you should consider asking your friend or neighbor to help you feed your betta while you are away. Do well to remind them to feed your betta fish so, they don’t get starved. They might not be able to properly feed your betta fish the way you do, so when you return from your vacation, feed your betta fish too and check if they were properly fed while you were away.
You should also know that if you don’t feed your betta fish for one day or two days, it is healthy.
If you keep feeding your betta fish every time, you may end up overfeeding it. And overfeeding be your Betta is not healthy. They may gain unhealthy weight and have swim bladder issues.
Just make sure the food you are feeding your betta fish with is filled with the necessary nutrients they need to stay healthy. Avoid overfeeding them. They should stay underfed with their necessary nutritious food.
If you don’t feed your betta fish for one day or two days, their digestive system will have enough time to break down the food particles they consumed a few days back.
If you can do all the things I talked about, your betta fish will enjoy living healthy and live longer.
Conclusion
Your betta fish can enjoy a 3-5 years lifespan if you maintain it properly. If you love your betta fish, you will do everything you can to protect it and keep it healthy.
If you can follow all the guidelines I outlined in this article, be sure to enjoy the company of that beautiful betta fish pet of yours.